23 Kilograms
My project starts from the idea of remembering through photography within the immigrant community. Its objective is to bring to light the intimate relationship that the immigrants preserve with their native land through the photographs they brought with them in their luggage (23 kilogram-weight limit allowed generally by airlines companies). Each carried with them their “luggage” of projections, dreams, expectation or fears. Nevertheless, different as they might be, for each of them immigration involved the physical journey of crossing borders. But, prior to that, in the very moments preceding their departure, they had to select a few number of objects to carry with them. Some of them were utterly practical, warm weather, bad weather clothes or documents mandatory for traveling towards a foreign country. The very emotionally charged moments preceding their re-location were the moments when their process of emigration started to become material. Not an easy choice. Numberless little objects charged with past memories were deserted, abandoned. Because the allowed luggage to be carried on most airlines companies involved a weight restriction. Generally, no more than 23 kilograms for each passenger. 23 kilograms containing a lifetime, their identity for a new life. An exchange. Heavy when compared to a daily, routine luggage one has to carry along. Light if it is meant to concentrate one’s belonging and potential necessities for the encounter with an unknown space. Packed, stuffed and carefully zipped up, this luggage represents, on the other side of the border, the most familiar object, the closest to them, still pertaining to the space left behind and yet, the start-up for their new life. Within this luggage many of the immigrants introduced an element that did not belong to any immediate necessity and practical purpose. Photographs. My project is meant to enter exactly this highly subjective world, to unveil their intimate relationship to the world left behind, by keeping a photograph recording an important moment of their past. The photographs they have selected from a large personal archive remain silent witnesses, rendering a palpable feeling towards the past. Apart from the memories they trigger, these photographs became in time marked by the voyage they have been through, torn at edges, stained or sometimes pen-marked on the back; they belong not only to their past, but they become companions of the present. My project, "23 kilograms," investigates the imaginary as well as the material nature of the border that immigrants have to cross in order to reach North America. Before leaving their native country, the border remains for immigrants an imaginary threshold. This border becomes extremely concrete when they board a plane to reach the North American continent. The ocean underneath translates in precisely the hours before their arriving to their destination, filled with their hopes, fears, and moreover with projections toward a space unknown. Their new life. But the water spreading underneath stands physically in between continents. It will always remain in between, a border to be pierced back by memories and longing. The exhibition will contain: 1.a 20 centimeters height stratum of water in a wooden structure, filling up the floor of the exhibition room. 2. Photographs and objects belonging to immigrants, displayed under this layer of water, but which can be viewed by visitors through the plastic and glass sheet that covers the water container. 3. Videos with immigrants’ interviews projected on the walls of the exhibition space. 4. Photographs I took, documenting the immigrants’ living environment. This project is site-specific. I will build a wooden structure that will duplicate the shape of the room; generally, it will have a rectangle shape, but if the exhibition room contains irregularities, the container will emulate this shape accordingly. This structure will have a wooden frame, protected by impermeable material, which prevents the water to leak out. It will have at least 20 centimeters height. On top of this structure, there will be a transparent plastic and glass sheet that will permit the viewer to look through, but which will also be capable of holding the weight of the spectators. It is important that the space of the exhibition should not be fragmented, so that the materiality and fluidity of water to be fully experienced: The ocean in itself flows continuously, except for the shores of land on either site, precisely the shores that delimit continents, and in the case of immigrants, that delimit lives. But the ocean contains more than it is seen on the surface, a hidden life that remains unknown from the outside. The water that the spectators will literally step on – on the plastic/glass sheet that allows for good visibility – will reveal the objects that immigrants brought along with them. They can be garments, pots, cutlery, photographs, shoes that sometimes were more that inadequate for rough winters, or objects received from friends just before leaving, with only a sentimental value. This modality of exhibiting, underneath people’s feet, under water, will challenge audience’s horizon of expectation, more familiar with a vertical display. At the same time, it is a modality of bringing the audience in direct contact with the work; they can actually touch it. « 23 kilograms » takes a poetic form, but at the same time, it contributes to building an archive of oral histories of the immigrant community, which would be otherwise lost. My project will bring into the public space stories, objects and memories that normally remain confined to the private space, but which, even within this intimate environment, remain sometimes unspoken. My project allows the immigrant community to acquire a public voice, which shapes their new collective identity.
Corina Ilea is a photographer living and working in Montreal, Canada. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University, Montreal. Her photographic projects investigate the relationship between memory and forgetting as manifest in communities that suffer displacement. In 2010 she was awarded the Vivacité Montreal grant for her project “23 Kilograms,” which looks into the intimate relationship that immigrants preserve with their native land through the photographs and objects they brought with them in their luggage – 23 kilogram weight limit generally allowed by airlines companies. Her works have been exhibited in Canada, USA and Romania.
23 Kilograms
My project starts from the idea of remembering through photography within the immigrant community. Its objective is to bring to light the intimate relationship that the immigrants preserve with their native land through the photographs they brought with them in their luggage (23 kilogram-weight limit allowed generally by airlines companies). Each carried with them their “luggage” of projections, dreams, expectation or fears. Nevertheless, different as they might be, for each of them immigration involved the physical journey of crossing borders. But, prior to that, in the very moments preceding their departure, they had to select a few number of objects to carry with them. Some of them were utterly practical, warm weather, bad weather clothes or documents mandatory for traveling towards a foreign country. The very emotionally charged moments preceding their re-location were the moments when their process of emigration started to become material. Not an easy choice. Numberless little objects charged with past memories were deserted, abandoned. Because the allowed luggage to be carried on most airlines companies involved a weight restriction. Generally, no more than 23 kilograms for each passenger. 23 kilograms containing a lifetime, their identity for a new life. An exchange. Heavy when compared to a daily, routine luggage one has to carry along. Light if it is meant to concentrate one’s belonging and potential necessities for the encounter with an unknown space. Packed, stuffed and carefully zipped up, this luggage represents, on the other side of the border, the most familiar object, the closest to them, still pertaining to the space left behind and yet, the start-up for their new life. Within this luggage many of the immigrants introduced an element that did not belong to any immediate necessity and practical purpose. Photographs. My project is meant to enter exactly this highly subjective world, to unveil their intimate relationship to the world left behind, by keeping a photograph recording an important moment of their past. The photographs they have selected from a large personal archive remain silent witnesses, rendering a palpable feeling towards the past. Apart from the memories they trigger, these photographs became in time marked by the voyage they have been through, torn at edges, stained or sometimes pen-marked on the back; they belong not only to their past, but they become companions of the present. My project, "23 kilograms," investigates the imaginary as well as the material nature of the border that immigrants have to cross in order to reach North America. Before leaving their native country, the border remains for immigrants an imaginary threshold. This border becomes extremely concrete when they board a plane to reach the North American continent. The ocean underneath translates in precisely the hours before their arriving to their destination, filled with their hopes, fears, and moreover with projections toward a space unknown. Their new life. But the water spreading underneath stands physically in between continents. It will always remain in between, a border to be pierced back by memories and longing. The exhibition will contain: 1.a 20 centimeters height stratum of water in a wooden structure, filling up the floor of the exhibition room. 2. Photographs and objects belonging to immigrants, displayed under this layer of water, but which can be viewed by visitors through the plastic and glass sheet that covers the water container. 3. Videos with immigrants’ interviews projected on the walls of the exhibition space. 4. Photographs I took, documenting the immigrants’ living environment. This project is site-specific. I will build a wooden structure that will duplicate the shape of the room; generally, it will have a rectangle shape, but if the exhibition room contains irregularities, the container will emulate this shape accordingly. This structure will have a wooden frame, protected by impermeable material, which prevents the water to leak out. It will have at least 20 centimeters height. On top of this structure, there will be a transparent plastic and glass sheet that will permit the viewer to look through, but which will also be capable of holding the weight of the spectators. It is important that the space of the exhibition should not be fragmented, so that the materiality and fluidity of water to be fully experienced: The ocean in itself flows continuously, except for the shores of land on either site, precisely the shores that delimit continents, and in the case of immigrants, that delimit lives. But the ocean contains more than it is seen on the surface, a hidden life that remains unknown from the outside. The water that the spectators will literally step on – on the plastic/glass sheet that allows for good visibility – will reveal the objects that immigrants brought along with them. They can be garments, pots, cutlery, photographs, shoes that sometimes were more that inadequate for rough winters, or objects received from friends just before leaving, with only a sentimental value. This modality of exhibiting, underneath people’s feet, under water, will challenge audience’s horizon of expectation, more familiar with a vertical display. At the same time, it is a modality of bringing the audience in direct contact with the work; they can actually touch it. « 23 kilograms » takes a poetic form, but at the same time, it contributes to building an archive of oral histories of the immigrant community, which would be otherwise lost. My project will bring into the public space stories, objects and memories that normally remain confined to the private space, but which, even within this intimate environment, remain sometimes unspoken. My project allows the immigrant community to acquire a public voice, which shapes their new collective identity.
Corina Ilea is a photographer living and working in Montreal, Canada. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University, Montreal. Her photographic projects investigate the relationship between memory and forgetting as manifest in communities that suffer displacement. In 2010 she was awarded the Vivacité Montreal grant for her project “23 Kilograms,” which looks into the intimate relationship that immigrants preserve with their native land through the photographs and objects they brought with them in their luggage – 23 kilogram weight limit generally allowed by airlines companies. Her works have been exhibited in Canada, USA and Romania.