From the First to the Final frame Maria Djelebova | "2019" Gallery Plovdiv Bulgaria | 2023

There is always something missing in a memory!

In shooting the album (a series of photographs) I wanted to achieve the truth that confirms memory as a category standing beyond the material world we inhabit. The layers of memory, the accumulated sensations, transmitted over time (and sometimes their absence), are part of the horizons of better worlds, about which all art tries to “speak about” in a language accessible to people. Memory seems innately called to store images — some of them remain forever in our mind, others fade with time. This makes memory malleable and changeable, and to some extent, it re-creates our past each time. After all, memory is also one of the few categories that resist death.

The way a story is seen and the way it can be told change over time. The visions of a deeply personal world that unfolded in a particular historical and cultural context are redefined. The quality of the experiences is different when memories are reconsidered and seen from a distance with time. In this series of photographs, the main theme is identity, memory, and the relationship between the small individual stories, memories, and the truth about them, the present, and their reinterpretation. Because memory is a basic building block of identity. It would be good, when we recall fragments of our past, to realize what we have forgotten and why it resurfaces in our memory. Because often, memory is destined to close the circle of pain and trauma by raising new memories through reciprocity and brotherhood.

Humans are the “archaeologists” of their own memories!

Text redaction Lora Dinkova

Title of the photo series: