MEMORY OF THE EYES - Sara Cucè
Sara Cucè (b. 1991, Italy) is a London-based photographer whose work explores questions of identity, representation, perception, memory, and the environment. Within her practice she unravels identity and subjectivity as something that is never complete, but always in process, and invariably formed from within. “Memory of the eyes” is an ongoing visual diary focused on the theme of home and belonging, the concept of migration in relation to identity and therefore of space, time and memory. The work aims to represent the existential condition of the individual that migrates to a new territory, questioning where and who they belong to. It draws inspiration from Cucè’s personal experience of migrating from Sicily to the United Kingdom about ten years ago, where she currently studies a Masters degree in Curating Art at LSBU & Whitechapel Gallery in London.
Investigating the in-between spaces of migration in search of a visual form, Cucè describes what it feels like to be neither here nor there. Through photography, she overcomes this sense of isolation and loneliness; a battle of dualities typical of our times. Formatted as a visual diary, the surreal black and white photographs provide an evocative look at the poetics of belonging and the challenges of being in a state of constant flux. Within them, one can recognize streets and interiors of the British capital, but seen through a surrealist, transfiguring lens. Using double exposures to convey the ways in which migration can be a minefield, she balances the pull of nostalgia against the promise of the new. Each scene is stitched together of both past and present. In layering, shifting, enlarging parts of the image, and by combining light with shadows, footprints and reflections, she manages to marry technique to concept.