I am still formulating so many thoughts and digesting events of this week. So much happened and I am forever amazed at the resourcefulness and generosity of people here. The first couple of days were spent contacting various people, mostly speaking to women who are my mother’s customers and friends. Everyone has been so open and willing to help out.
One of my mother’s friends said that her mother in law has mentioned recently about the clothes she has prepared. But, when she asked her mother in law if she would be willing to have the clothes photographed she refused. And this is one of the challenges of this project, the subject of death is a sensitive one and therefore asking people to ask their grandmothers, mothers, aunties, neighbours is a tricky one, and clothes for death are personal and intimate belongings, therefore not many people want to share them with others then the family.
Having said that, today I visited Marija, who is going to be 94 on the 18th April, she was born in 1913! I was introduced to her by a friend who is a nurse, and who as part of her job is visiting elderly at home. She also helped me last year with the project. Marija is being cared for at home, living with her family. During the civil war she had to escape her home and come as a refugee, walking from Sanski Most to Banja Luka (around 80km). Amongst very few things she brought with her is a dress she sewed herself (she used to be a seamstress) and which she wants to wear when she dies. I photographed her with her dress laid out next to her…I also recorded some her remarkable life stories…Having survived three! wars, she remembers (however patchy) various armies, regimes and changes of the governments. Her grandson, who is a journalist, set next to her, and prodded her to say various bits of stories…the one that really stays with me is from WW2, about a German soldier who ran into her house and started crying; she was startled by this and hid in one of the rooms, when this soldier had a good cry he told her to keep quiet and went outside…
