These collages focus on my nonno and the memories he shared with me. He loved telling stories about his past, but over the past few years he has begun to lose his memory. He migrated from Italy and worked tirelessly building power lines across Australia to provide for his family. He looks back on this time as an impactful and pivotal part of his life. I wanted to take a look inside his head, and capture the moments that have made him the man he is today, before they fade away.
I have taken images he took over fifty years ago and merged them together to alter the memories, representing the way that he now recalls this period. I have focused on his images working on the power lines, and combined them with important life events to show the mixing and significance in his mind. Some of these are fairly realistic, while others are more abstract interpretations. I collaged these through portraits of his current self, to show that this is how he views and remembers himself, and wants us to view him as well. The rips are further representing the manual work we see him doing in the past images and allow us to take a look inside his aging mind to see him reminiscing and being shaped by these memories.
