In the mountains, the sun is shining

My family faced dementia for the first time when my grandfather got sick in the 1980s. My grandmother cared for him until he passed away in 2008. She witnessed every step of his disease. I can’t imagine how frightening it was when she was diagnosed herself and had to face the same future.

“Where is grandpa? Where is Francelj? I must go home and take care of Francelj!” In recent months, these thoughts about my grandfather have become part of my grandmother’s reality. It shows that the past can become so deeply rooted within us that it shapes not only our memories but also our experience of the present. In case of dementia, memories can often become the only sense of the present.

In the mountains, the sun is shining is an exploration of the fragility and unreliability of memories within the framework of dementia and Slovenian post-communist environment. In order to understand the relationship between landscape, body and memory, I’m exploring their significance in the context of past, present, and future.

Through various photographic methods and the collection of oral and written histories, I’m creating a counter-archive that transcends a singular interpretation. By bringing together official historical records, familial recollections, and my personal reflections I’m constructing multi-layered realities showing disruptions brought about by dementia and mutations of reality in the post-communist era. With the project I argue that history can turn out to be a product of imagination to the same extent as memories.