Meet my mum

How do our parents, as well as all the influences that they have instilled in us until our adulthood, begin to “weigh” on us? How do we end up one day, without ever having considered it, with “our parents on our backs”?

In recent years, Sacha Goldberger has observed that in a world where everything revolves around communication, with the explosion of dating sites and social networks, the older generation can suffer from isolation and a reduced social life.

“Meet My Mum” is an account of tenderness which tends towards oppression, when these parents who made us, formed us, loved us, over time find themselves alone, lost and dependent. The process starts to reverse.

You see the nature of these contrasting filial relationships in the treatment of the light in each of the pictures. Between affection and suffocation, shadow and light. It appears that the protagonists do not necessarily perceive the presence of their elders, nor their weight. Whether it be the children themselves or the other characters, no-one sees anything. Only the viewer of the photos, like a privileged witness, becomes the observer of this weighty secret.

The artist underlines the paradox between the extreme closeness of children to their parents, and the solitude of the individual. A long-time fan of Edward Hopper, Sacha Goldberger, invites us on a voyage through the 1950s. The choice of this period, in the heart of an American dreamscape, creates a shifts in perception. Placed out of time, the spectator escapes the simple reality of the idea and finds himself directly confronted by his own relationship with his elderly relations.

But beyond these parent / child relationships, Sacha Goldberger also deals with loneliness. No glance is exchanged; each person is absent and isolated in his own world. Between presence and absence.