Aleksa Indane
She/ Her
A personal exploration through cyanotypes and photography to delve into nostalgic memories that fade over time.
She/ Her
While exploring the process of printmaking, I use fragments of memory within my practice and how easily memories are forgotten and manipulated over time. Utilising cyanotype comes with downsides as it naturally fades over time, which I used to my advantage by transforming stills into scanned images, which preserve the colour and original print. By using photos and videos that would have only gotten lost in my parents’ camera rolls, I repurpose the footage to capture the innocent nostalgia of childhood, to preserve the fragments that would be forgotten and lost otherwise.
By using my culture and identity in my work, it resonates with viewers who grew up in a country where they never felt a sense of true belonging and repressed their own identity to pursue a false ideal where they grew up. By embracing my roots and heritage, I hope to inspire many individuals to do the same, rather than fitting an ideal.
One of the most important aspects to consider while creating this film was to honour my heritage. As I was using a video from childhood, it was difficult looking back at a video I couldn’t recognise, and it evoked the memories of repressing my culture when immigrating to the UK from Latvia. It was difficult to find a perfect balance between the language I spoke at home and the mannerisms I used compared to my peers, as I spent the majority of the time trying to keep up with those I was surrounded by. Once I reached my late teens, I felt less pressure to fit in, where I would say things I picked up from my mum and how she pronounced them in English, and I still did not understand sarcasm entirely. However, I realised multiculturalism is what makes a country unique. If it weren’t for different cultures coming together, there wouldn’t be as much variation with food, music, tradition and inclusivity.
While working on this project, I spoke frequently to my grandparents, who taught me about many key historical events that I never learned growing up, as I learned only about the United Kingdom and core history. They delved into the depths of the USSR, as Latvia is a post-Soviet state, and they told me about their experiences during adulthood. When talking to my grandmother, I realised an important aspect of each country is its cultural patterns that can appear on clothing and ornaments, which pivoted my attention to learning about the symbols and patterns that represent Latvian folk culture, which are included in my work to showcase the different embroidery. By working with my grandma on this project, I felt a connection of togetherness where I could feel closer to her and proud of my roots and history.
Halfway through the semester, I tried a different solution compared to the initial brand, which highlighted a high-quality difference, however the old cyanotype solution produced more variation, where I could achieve effects that resembled static but had much lower clarity.
My film consists of 312 frames, some of which are reused, which creates a total of over 500 frames in the entire sequence. My dad took the original video to celebrate my 8th birthday, which I personally cannot recall. I extracted each frame and printed it on clear acetate in a negative format. This was then used while developing my cyanotype prints to create the traditional Prussian blue. Once I had all of my frames completed, I used Premiere Pro to transform the photos into a stop motion video. The video was created with 8 and 9 frames per second, varying throughout the video, alongside the original recording’s audio.
“Memory lives in prints”
-Peter Doig
