Degas once famously said, “art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Inspired by the work of Romanian photographer, Felicia Simion, Marmalade + Kindness, Founder, Adamantia Velonis explores the tension of preserving culture and identity in the modern world.
Felicia Simion is a Romanian photographer, visual artist and self-proclaimed ‘oddball of the family.’ Self-taught, she uncovered photography as her calling during adolescence. Since then she has developed a significant body of work, recognised in a host of international competitions: PDN Faces, International Photography Awards (IPA), Paris Prix de la Photographie, Sony World Photography Awards, Travel Photographer of the Year, The Irish Times Photography Awards, and the Moscow International Photo Award.
Her photography is at once observational and poetic. Her images impart a surreal quality, immortalising our day-to-day experience and capturing those fleeting moments of magic and wonder. Her work also unveils memory – the memories that live within us, and beyond us – and go to the core of reconciling our multiple identities in ‘family’ and ‘society.’ She has photographed traditional Romanian village life, exploring the purity of childhood lost and a premodern way of living in The playground. Her recent work, Motherhood explores the joys of being a mother, capturing the warm expressions of this intimate and unique bond. Using her art as inspiration, I explore the personal memories her work has awakened.
THE FUNERAL + VILLAGE LIFE
The first time I visited Greece was for my grandmother’s funeral. I was struck by the mountainous terrain, dimpled with olive groves. The scars of the global financial crisis unmistakeable, as we passed barren buildings and blackened, graffitied walls. The funeral took place a few hours outside Athens.
© Felicia Simion, from the series Holes
The winter air was crisp, swaying blades of grass glazed in frost. Entering the village I meet my grandmother’s elder sister for the first time. Unlike her other sisters, she didn’t leave Greece after the war. She stayed. Her home was tiny – filled with copper cooking pots, hand-crocheted doilies, and other knick-knacks that had some personal meaning. I felt in a different time, as an outsider dropped in a scene. A wave of embarrassment swept over me, my iPhone suddenly burning hot in my pocket.
Sitting next to my auntie at the wake, I asked ‘Why are they still living in the village?’ My auntie’s eyes smiled at me, distantly, almost taking pity on me for asking the question. ‘Don’t worry, we visit them. They are happy; they have what they need. They could have gone to Australia or America like your grandmother, but they chose this life.’ I moved the pasta around my plate, looking down. She was right. My Thea was breathing fresh air; it was her younger sister who was gone.
© Felicia Simion, from the series Eggs, pots and oranges
My grandfather was sitting on the other side of me, tearing the bread roll and gently mopping up the pooling pasta sauce. He was reminiscing about the war, lining up to be feed as a small child with his older brother. He was already a healthy weight, so he wasn’t given a bowl. He laughs, ‘Do you remember how it was back then?’ He asks no one in particular, ‘We grew up on bread, olives and olive oil!’ he declares to the table, chuckling.
Over three summers (2013-2016), Simion followed her little cousin, Felix around their small village in Romania. The photos of Felix capture the essence of childhood – or at least youth as my grandparents knew it. Freedom. Freedom to roam, to play, to imagine. Freedom from technology and gadgetry. Growing up in the nineties, I started playing with computers at school, the TV after school and, while I never quite figured out what I was supposed to do with a Tamagotchi, I had a few.
But what my grandfather learnt as child, would take me years to find…contentment.
© Felicia Simion, from the series The playground
THE HOME + MATRIARCHY
Home is a theme that runs through Simion’s oeuvre – from the images of her grandmother’s house in Eggs, pots and oranges, to the modernised mix of apartment buildings springing up in Romania in H O M E, to her growing belly in Womb, where her body becomes the site of shelter to her yet unborn child. Home she seems to say, is the centre of life and to borrow the phrase from Gaston Bachelard, ‘physically inscribed in us.’
In ethnogrophies, head scarfed women in traditional dress, overlap, the back of their heads passing in repetitive succession. They are like figures from the past, reminding us of the women who came before, pulling loaves of bread out of wood fire stoves, cooking communally, weaving rugs. I still have my great grandmother’s handwoven blankets – heavy, rough, and brightly coloured, the mix of magenta, turquoise, brown and red, helping our dough to prove. My grandmother would crotchet as a past time, but she never taught me. She said it would ruin my posture. I did a bit of continental cross-stitch over the summer holidays, stationed at her feet, sifting through her balls of coloured yarn and scrap fabrics. But it was mere imitation.
In Simion’s photo, it’s as though they have turned their back on us, walking away. But the truth is, we are the ones who turned our back – to only rekindle our ‘culture’ on national holidays. I sympathise with the little girls, facing the camera, miniature versions of their grandmothers.
© Felicia Simion, from the series ethnographies
One year my grandmother brought me a national costume back from Greece. It felt a size too small, and the elasticised skirt band dug uncomfortably into my protruding child’s belly. A reminder that I didn’t fit – I wasn’t Greek, but I wasn’t Australian. I remember my grandmother’s face, during the Greek school concerts, beaming in the crowd, clapping as I recited my part, sweaty little palms clinging on to the mic.
It made her so proud. She came to a country where she didn’t know the language, and there I was speaking hers. But I didn’t see it that way. I hated going to Greek school and I would try and use every ounce of sway I had with my mother to stop going on Saturday mornings. But my grandmother wouldn’t budge – I was going. I would greedily gobble up all the Easter treats she would make – tsourekia, mayiritsa – but I didn’t appreciate how much effort it took to keep making those foods in a country that wasn’t your own.
I struggle to recognise her in me sometimes. There are just skills I will never have. Those big strong arms slapping the dough against the marble kitchen island, rolling it out into ever thinner layers. I would pour the extra flour into her hands, so the mixture wouldn’t get stuck. I was lucky. She was there creating memories for me, even when she didn’t know if I would appreciate them after she was gone. But what about my children? Who is going to raise them like she raised me? Maybe she also felt like she didn’t measure up to her predecessors, she’d talk about them often enough…Living in London, I’m close to Greece and yet further away from all my family than I ever have been. After all these year, I’m now paying for Greek language lessons.
© Felicia Simion, from the series ethnographies
MOTHERHOOD + IDENTITY
Simion’s work gives due primacy to the domestic sphere. In ethnographies, we see multi-generational communities of women, in Motherhood, we see women as heads of their own homes. While seemingly, idyllic on the surface, we are reminded of the isolation of modern living, but also that that as women we set the tone; we are the example of love. The photos of mothers hugging their children, speak to us because we know home is in those arms. There are no man-made walls that offer more security. Unlike, the domestic portraits of yesteryear, these children are not mere ‘accessories.’ These are dynamic portraits. Mothers and children cooking, reinforcing each other through these daily rituals. We don’t realise it at the time, but our childhood food memories are some of our strongest, and these everyday moments will take on a new significance when that little girl becomes a woman.
© Felicia Simion, from the series Motherhood
Because, when we’re young we never think we’re going to grow up. Il était une fois reminds me of living with my grandparents after my parents divorced, being surrounded by black and white family photos from the 60s, examining cupboards full of china waiting for an occasion special enough to be used…looking at my reflection in my grandmother’s vanity. Then it sneaks up on you; you aren’t that little girl anymore.
© Felicia Simion, from the series Il était une fois
In Through a land of deserts and pits, Simion dons a full-body suit, enclosing herself in a second skin. Without being able to see, she relies on her other senses to navigate the natural environment. “I clung to earth and her dear shapes, her density, her herbage, her juice. I wanted her volume, and I wanted to hear her throb,” said artist Emily Carr. Yet, we can not cling forever. Simion observed while making the series that she felt like a ‘stranger’ and a ‘wanderer,’ allowing the series to take on spiritual connotations, as our time on earth is limited, yet our actions have consequences.
Our choices impact the planet, long after we have returned to earth. While we are here, all we have are moments, and they can only be perceived through the senses, by being. Curled into the rock face, Simion is ‘reclaiming her roots and becoming one with nature,’ recalling the words of Cuban artist, Ana Mendieta. Art historian, Frances Borzello, author of Seeing Ourselves: Women’s Self-Portraits comments on Mendieta’s ‘Silueta Works in Mexico, 1973-7,’ explaining that the artist, ‘used developments in performance and land art to expand the self-portrait’s ability to speak to female experience.’ Similarly, Simion fuses these genres, looking up at the sky, she seems to be yelling into the ether, ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What is my purpose?’
© Felicia Simion, from the series Through a land of deserts and pits
For Simion, the answer may be found in creation. If your life is your message, then her works over the years, point to the conclusion, that as humans, we were born to create. In Womb the photos of Simion’s pregnant silhouette, show us that creating something (or someone) that will live outside yourself takes courage. We see her body collaged six times, arms raised, like a mythical nymph trapped behind clouded glass. We have the sense that something is being destroyed to make way for the new, that growth is born of sacrifice. She seems to ask the viewer ‘what will be left of me?’ once this process is complete, hinting at the complexity of identity – as each version of herself isn’t any less authentic or relevant than any other.
© Felicia Simion, from the series Womb
To quote Degas, “art is not what you see, but what you make others see,” and in Simion’s art, I see the complexities of my heritage and culture, the dynamics of preserving tradition in a modern, globalised era. I see my identity as a woman, daughter and granddaughter. And ultimately, recognise in Simion, another creator, exploring, grappling, and documenting those thoughts and interactions, to make sense of what it means to be here and to contribute to the world. When asked why she became a photographer, Simion says, ‘To be honest, I think I became a photographer because I had to; there simply was such a strong inner voice telling me to do so, that I could not resist. I don’t know where it came from—perhaps a place I cannot access myself—but I know I have to keep it there and follow it fearlessly.’ She challenges us to find the courage to do the same.
