Pedras nos olhos: fotografia, memória e sonho

Abstract

Since childhood, I have been skeptical of images. Therefore, I do not envision any other way to confront this feeling of distrust than by taking a dual path: first inward, immersing myself in the photographs from my family archive, and then outward, appropriating various images (public, private, from others, etc). This has been the way in which I am able to generate new visual connections between myself and photography. Everything in this research is part of this process of intersecting paths, and therefore, the text should also be embraced as a sensitive endeavor. Images and words are sustained both at the peaks and along the trail forged during these years of practical-theoretical investigation.

Regarding the theoretical approach, I engage in dialogues with memory, forgetting, and the remaining memories of family histories and events that have shaped my life. In doing so, the idea of discontinuity, a fundamental characteristic of dreams and memory, serves to contemplate the structures of photographic narratives when intertwined with fiction. I take the photobook as both an object and a concept to stimulate the movement of images, the challenge to linear narrative, and the disruption of pagination to disfigure it. Thus, I construct a constellation-based narrative founded on the coexistence of words and images that defies chronology. This dissertation is a poetic reflection on the mobility of my photographic archives and the multitude of paths that visual dialogues can trace.