Kvennleggur

Photobook text

Photobook

The photobook I´m working on is a collection of photos taken over the last hundred years by/of my female lineage of ancestors, and my representation of them. These are the women that raised me and have made me in a big part who I am today. I will be exploring my femininity, ancestry, womanhood, and motherhood. We are usually “kennd” by our fathers. We get our last name from them. In Iceland it goes a step further as we don't have family names, but instead are our father's children. Like my name is: Lydsdottir, which means the daughter of Lydur (my father's name). I My great grandmother bought her first camera in the 1930s, and took beautiful photos and selfportraits, and then later on continued to take beautiful photos of her family. It is an interesting perspective as most photos these days were taken by men. The photos span from my great great grandmother posing for a family photo with her 8 children to photos taken recently. I have been collecting photos from my family since 2007. When it was my great grandmother´s, amma Gunna, 100th birthday, I scanned in photos from her life and presented them as a slide-show. It made my grandmother very happy, as the old pictures are very small, and her sight was deteriorating, so she was seeing her photos for the first time in a very long time. The slideshow became a photobook I put together 2 years later when she passed away. I also made a photobook for my grandmother, amma Sigga, when she turned 70. Soon after I made a slideshow for my mother when she turned 50. So I have a great collection of images that span over 100 years. The photobook is a work in progress. I´m still collecting and choosing images to represent in my own way. When I was doing test shots for the photobook, something happened, and my direction changed. I have chosen to try and copy their poses, looks and feeling of their bodies using my phone as a mirror and remote for my camera and therefor being able to simulate their body language. I simplify the background and surroundings, or change them into modern surroundings. The photobook project relates to my essay in the way that it spans over a long period of time. The ways we see and we as observers have changed greatly since my great grandmother was born. The aesthetics are different and the meaning of photo has also changed. I want to further explore these photos, to continue the conversation with my past. Try to represent these moments by filtering the things I think are important from the images, modernise them into my own time, and to find myself somewhere in the part of the process. I have never enjoyed being in front of the camera, and always wanted to stay behind it. I think this project is important for my self reflection and to see and get to know myself another way.