Long Time No See
2019
One day I stood in front of a mirror and saw my reflection in it. I said - long time no see. It was the first time I missed someone I had never met and would never meet again.
I recall a situation in which I discover that the visible footprints of shoes in front of me are identical to the footprints which I leave behind. Have I been here before? Has anyone been in mine shoes?
Starting this photographic work my initial assumption was getting close enough to my grandfather to touch him. The hardest thing remained the awareness that this physical touch will never come to pass. My grandfather passed away years ago, before my birthday. We never found each other. I started visiting places my grandfather probably could have been and at least I really wanted him there. When I went to places, I looked for signs of the past which, in turn, showed me the way ahead of me. Then I realised that every time I visited a new place, it turned out that I had been there before. At some point the color has revealed - light blue. It was everywhere where I went and it has started leading me. Unannounced, unpredictable. I try to read spell words in this color, hear the echo that it has been ringing in it for years. I believe there is a hidden image of him, his words or at least a reflection of his glance. There is a certain hope that I saw my grandfather once and at the same time words "long time no see" are in endless amount of time back and forth. It's a kind of indispensable regret. I recognized my grandfather in the blue, the spell was broken. Freed by me he triumphed over death and began to live in me.