It took me most of my life to realize how incredible my mother is.  As I was growing up my parents seemed like simple immigrant parents. I lost my father 6 years ago, and my art explored our relationship. I recently read “My Father’s Paradise” by Ariel Sabar which inspired me to re-examine who my mother is. 

            Most of my life I viewed my mom as the person who provided me with unconditional affection, food, shelter and motivation to pursue my dreams. She is so much more than that. My mother was born in Hungary in 1943, in the center of Europe, in the middle of the Holocaust.  She miraculously survived the Budapest ghetto and the Nazis. Her father survived the Bergen-Belson death camp.  But the post war reunification with her family was short lived; neither of her parents were still living when she married my father at age 20.  Despite this heavy emotional baggage she was undeterred, and entered the male dominated field of mechanical engineering. She immigrated to Canada, and was not deterred by lack of language skills, being the subject of prejudice, and sexism and continued her profession. Once she started a family, she gave up her career in order to spend the formative years with her children.

            I intend to produce a photographic narrative of my mother’s life.  I will create images that will highlight important aspects of her personality and her experiences.  There will be both formal portraits as well as documentary images that reflect elements of her personality and her experiences.  For example, I will photograph her domestic space, personal objects and other items that reference her Hungarian background, her religious affiliation, as well as portraits of her.  The images will be 20 x 24 inches in both black and white as well as colour, depending upon which suits the image better. 

            Through the presentation of the final series of images, I am hoping the viewer would be able to appreciate who my mother is. She is a feminist while remaining very feminine; she survived history’s worst horror as a child but did not allow it to define how she lives.