I used my grandparents memories because they are more fascinating than mine, what attracts me is that I don’t know where they come from.

They represent a story that they can’t tell and I feel the responsibility to write it to get them out of a drawer, to remove the dust that covers their eyes. Looking at them I try to understand me and I try to know where I come from before understand where I am going.

I find myself face to face with the women I’ve been, I try to trace my smiles on other mouths that have smiled before me. I just see people posing for strangers, they don’t care about my existence, they can’t get to me but I can get to them.

With the old family album in my hand I understand the meaning of the portuguese feeling called saudade: the melancholy for a time we have not lived.

I’m moved looking at my grandmother in black and white and I think I miss her, I miss not having lived it when she was young. I miss not having been with her while she fell in love with my grandfather.

I scanned my family’s historical archive to create digital collages where the distant past meet the dream world in my head. I created a dimension where two times exist together.

My grandparents had few pictures to see each other in, but those pictures tell many stories and I want to tell them all. I transformed every hug into a solemn gesture, every eye in a window and a snowy day into a memorable event.

This is my imaginary present.