La fille du marin
2018-
(ongoing project)
My father works as a sailor on cargo ships, which has always been pretty unusual for someone from a landlocked country like Hungary, and has always attracted people’s curiosity. As a result, having a different family from others has always been a part of my identity. As I was growing up, long-distance relationships, adapting to different time zones and tracking my dad's journeys on a world map were ordinary aspects of my daily life.
I only had one heartbreak about my father’s job: I could never travel with him. So as a kid sailing always remained something I could only wish for and dream about.
Hungarian sea shipping only lasted as long as the USSR existed. Due to the political changes in Hungary in the early 90’s I had no chance to travel with my father as my mother did beforehand. I could only rely on the anecdotes she told me about their adventures together - so I made her tell them to me again and again so that they wouldn’t fade into oblivion.
Photography became my tool to connect to the family legacy and my way to discover it. I started traveling in order to find the places that I only knew from their stories. Eventually, my trip became more than mere geographical discovery or simple documentation. Instead of the destination, the experience, the creative process and the journey itself became the point of my trip. The places I only heard about and imagined came to life, which became a conflict between fantasy and reality.
The photos I took made me think about myself. The trip and this project have helped me explore my personal heritage and realize how it effects the way I live my life. Since 2014 I have lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving between countries and embracing the rootless existence that echoes my father's wanderlust. I leave again and again just like I saw it from him, and undertake the rootless nomad life with all its beauty and difficulties.
Since I returned home I have continued to work on the project creating new photos based on the old stories, family traditions and archives, processing old letters and diaries and doing interviews with my parents. This work helps me put our narratives into a cohesive story. The final will be a book and installation.