ANTONIA’S GARDEN
2007-2011
Antonia’s Garden delved into my matriarchal lineage and the role of women within this institution. In this series of photographs, I explore the intricate emotional dynamics within families, concepts of intimacy, and the complex relationship between mother and child. By focusing on the fragility of life and using an autobiographical approach, I address issues pertaining to abandonment, displacement, and maternal mortality.
History and Context: In 1953, when my mother was seven years old, she was sent from her home in Sardinia, Italy, to live with a sick aunt in Calabria, never to return to her childhood home or immediate family. This experience of familial abandonment left deep scars, shaping her complex relationship with her mother. Her inability to express herself fully and her long-held silence reflected this inner conflict. After moving to Canada, my mother returned to Italy only for brief visits with her family. At the end of her life, my grandmother, bedridden and grappling with past mistakes, began to share how she felt about abandoning my mother. She asked me to record these confessions in an attempt to seek redemption. This intensely personal and emotionally charged experience inspired much of the work.
Antonia’s Garden comprises over 35 images, presented as staged vignettes that capture intimately autobiographical moments. These photographs are expressed through the narrative styles of film stills, portraiture, landscape, and still life and family members in quiet moments of reflection, juxtaposed with domestic spaces, landscapes, and still-life scenes, creating a rich narrative backdrop. Through these compositions, I seek to evoke states of mind and situate the viewer in geographical and emotional spaces. Ultimately, this body of work reflects the experiences of individuals living on the edge of emotional survival, often marked by loss, disconnection, and the inability to communicate.
Antonia’s Garden has also been published as a monograph.
Press: https://marisaportolese.com/Antonias-Garden
https://cielvariable.ca/en/issues/ciel-variable-96-performing-for-the-image/marisa-portolese-antonias-garden-isa-tousignant-tending-the-garden/
https://www.lensculture.com/books/14576-antonia-s-garden
https://vuphoto.org/fr/articles/au-jardin-elle-sest-promenee/
https://www.occurrence.ca/antonias-garden/
https://blackflash.ca/2015/01/16/marisa-portolese/
https://files.cargocollective.com/c1786539/fraction-magazine-issue-40-2013.pdf
https://files.cargocollective.com/c1786539/pdn-2012.pdf
https://files.cargocollective.com/c1786539/magenta-magazine-james-campbell-2011.pdf
PIETÀ
2011
Pietà is the video component of the Antonia’s Garden series, comprising a slow-paced moving image presented as a projection. It draws inspiration from Michelangelo Buonarotti’s sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. The Pietà is a passion portrait that expresses the inner landscape between mother and child. In my adaptation, the roles are reversed; my mother is the one portrayed in a state of vulnerability, alluding to a maelstrom of the intense emotional imbalance she experienced as a child.
Pietà is a double-channel video duration of 15:26 min.
Press:
https://cielvariable.ca/en/issues/ciel-variable-87-series/marisa-portolese-james-d-campbell/