What if your perception of the past is completely different from the stories you were told by your family? How can it be that people who live together for decennia have completely different memories of one and the same moment?
What if you were a Changeling?
My sense of being a Changeling is something that many people experience. I found that memories are playing tricks on us, they distort the specific elements of gender, location, who was involved. I decided to create a fictional life, to make my own memories, by playing with the concepts of time, space and scale. The title ‘Changeling’ orientates the lecture of the images, which convey a sense of nostalgia and sadness, as well as disorientation. Photos influence and distort actual recollections of the past. There is always an element of wishful thinking in the choice of the photos that are made and kept; a way to construct your life story and present yourself in a certain light. I found that family albums and snapshots are not merely objects. By going over the photos again and again the story keeps changing, zooming in and out of a family scene gives suggestion a bigger role. It makes me realize that your perception of the image must be incomplete, if not incoherent. Although it’s sad that I will never know the whole truth, it’s also a revelation to realize that memories aren’t fixed realities. It makes me free to get lost in my photographic archive as much as I want to. I can embrace the confusing relation that photography has with reality.
My ‘Changeling’ is about selective memory, it’s a story with holes. A ‘hole in memory’, not being able to reach a certain word while it is on the tip of your tongue is not just any hole, it has a certain size, a characteristic shape, specific edges. Even if you do not find what exactly fits, you immediately know that something does not fit.
Book: ‘Changeling’ by Pascale Hustings
‘Changeling’ awards, exhibitions:
-Fine Art Photo Awards nominated twice
-Belfast Photo Festival; Abridged Magazine, coverphoto and publication
-Bronze price Le Prix de la Photographie de Paris
-NDSM Zwerm exhibition
-Publication Het Parool, Amsterdam
-Lensculture Changeling featured at Emerging talents
-Honourable mention International Photography Award
-Exhibition De Mess Naarden Vesting
-Rotterdam Photo, Transitions, exhibition
-PF Magazine, coverphoto and interview
-Athens Photo Festival Athens, shortlist
-Chania International Photo Festival exhibition
-International Photo Festival Leiden, selected for exhibition
-Fine Art Photography Awards, nominee
-Prix de la Photographie de Paris, silver award and honourable mention
Book specifications:
Papers
120 grs Metapaper Extra Rough White
120 grs Fedrigoni Materica Acqua
80 grs Fedrigoni Arena Natural Smmoth
Van Heek halflinnen Dark
Edition 150
Photography Pascale Hustings
Text Pascale Hustings
Guest writer Prof. Douwe Draaisma
Edit Pascale Hustings, Suze Swarte
Graphic Design Suze Swarte
ISBN 978 90 830463 4 1
Printing Zwaan Lenoir
Binding Agia & Lith
