The main focus in Eva Maria’s work is on how to tell a story. When she delved into her family history, she became intrigued by hearing the same stories repeated but from different perspectives. She wondered how she could detach family events from personal experiences and make them relatable to the viewer. With this in mind, she introduced blank spaces to her narrative. These blanks might assume the form of empty or white spaces in photographs, silences in audios and stillnesses in videos. This leaves room for interpretation and potential continuations.
Memories of family events are the main starting point for Eva Maria’s video works. She comes from a small family and grew up with a close bond to her parents and grandparents. During family gatherings and conversations, she became conscious of the roles each person plays in a family by observing their gestures, gazes and subtle interactions. Often these gazes or poses would say more than the words that were spoken.
The family stories described in tableaux vivants become an open scenography. Each viewer can project their own family background or attach their own connections to family. The works not only minutely recall the unease of family gatherings but represent times past. The viewer is thus presented with time lapses that quietly confront us with our own and former generations - and what we believe we stand for.
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