Cătuna Ana
HOMELAND: I AM STILL ALIVE
My project explores the fragile intersection between the timelessness of the rural spirit and the inevitable decay of its material world. Focused on the Maramureș and Satu Mare regions in Northern Romania, this photographic series was born from my fascination with my grandmother’s universe—an 80-year-old woman who, despite being left alone, continues to reclaim her existence through the labour of the land. In her stubbornness to tend to the livestock and work the fields, I found a form of resilience that our urbanized, tech-driven generation can barely decipher.
Cătuna Ana "Homeland: I Am Still Alive"
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Homeland: I Am Still Alive
The series of 25 photographs functions as a logbook of a disappearing world. From the rituals of a traditional wedding to the relocation of a Maramureș wooden house—an act of preservation, yet also a forceful uprooting from its original context—the images capture the tension between conservation and extinction.
I developed this project with On Kawara’s 'I Am Still Alive' in mind. For my grandmother and for the depopulating villages of Northern Romania, every day of labour, every Sunday at church, and every house still standing is a vital signal—a silent message telling us that their universe still persists. The fundamental question of this project is one of finality: what will happen when these signals cease?
The series of 25 photographs functions as a logbook of a disappearing world. From the rituals of a traditional wedding to the relocation of a Maramureș wooden house—an act of preservation, yet also a forceful uprooting from its original context—the images capture the tension between conservation and extinction.
I developed this project with On Kawara’s 'I Am Still Alive' in mind. For my grandmother and for the depopulating villages of Northern Romania, every day of labour, every Sunday at church, and every house still standing is a vital signal—a silent message telling us that their universe still persists. The fundamental question of this project is one of finality: what will happen when these signals cease?
"Every day of labour, every Sunday at church, and every house still standing is a vital signal—a silent message telling us that their universe still persists".
Through these photographs, I am not merely documenting a geographical area; I am attempting to preserve an interior world. When the last witnesses of this way of life pass away, will they leave their universes to us, or will they take them along, leaving us only with the memory of a world we didn't learn to understand in time?