Debora
A lesbian woman, age 53
Photo: Alana Proosa
Photo: Alana Proosa
Debora told:
So these are my keys to my flat in Russia. […] I lived in that flat for [nearly 20] years. It’s still there. It has all our possessions […] And we have not been since [2022], it’s not possible for me to go back. So when I was in the flat, living there, it was a space of security. [I didn’t] have to worry about rent because I own the flat. It was a sense of […] permanent home. It can be taken away the next day, so it’s quite a privileged thing to have a place called home. And yes, for the future, I would take this feeling of the possibility to regain this feeling of home again. I can’t say I have that now, but to have that again would be quite nice.
Something I wouldn’t take into the future. Firstly, it would associate with something negative, something happened in the past. If you asked me this question a year and a half ago, I would have had lots of things to say, but now all these things have been processed and I’ve lived through everything, got through everything. The last three years have been of loss. My mom passed away in March, my dog passed away last November, I lost my home, nearly lost [my work]. So it was loss after loss after loss. Processing all this is still quite raw. […] Those images don’t go away very easily.
About the project in Estonia
Artist Alana Proosa photographed objects brought by the participants. These objects symbolised something to leave behind and something to bring to the future. These objects are accompanied by accounts told by the interviewees.
