More than just a photographic portrait project, Memento consists of an exercise in personal introspection, a journey through objects that may seem like junk or dusty relics, but which are emotionally linked to the person being photographed.
It depicts people with objects that are dear to them, some of which are family heirlooms or personal souvenirs from their childhood or youth ... triggering conversations about the past through objects that have survived.
I play with the portraits of these people; I make them remember and rummage through drawers and wardrobes, connecting them with a special person or moment, and at the end of this journey I capture their sadness, joy or pain.
Memento consists of portraits that speak to us through memory or absence; a tribute to the past and at the same time a contemporary vanitas evoking in their own language the relativity of the meaning of possession, subject as it is to the passage of time.
Claudia Clavell, phographer.