Through the imagery of a butterfly, I submerge into the most tragic event of my life — my father’s suicide. I was seven years old when he hanged himself. I began investigating the consequences of this childhood trauma only as an adult, realizing how deeply that shock had fractured my identity, leaving behind years of longing and the echo of unvoiced questions. In the 1990s, this topic was strictly taboo. I grew up in ignorance, yet intuition revealed the tragedy to me before the adults did. One moment remains forever etched in my memory: returning home, stepping across the threshold, and seeing every reflective surface covered with white sheets. In that single instant, my world shattered.
Turning to memory and the subconscious through dreams, archival photographs, fading recollections, and remaining belongings, I reconstruct my father’s image. I reconstruct this world anew to hold a dialogue with the past and process what occurred. My process involves mixed media and direct manipulation of images and objects to create multilayered photographs: for instance, I layer tracing paper, submerge archival photos in water, and utilize scans from a personal artbook created for this project.
The central symbol is the Morpho butterfly, bridging two different worlds. Metaphorically, this species is referred to as «fragments of the sky fallen to earth.» To this day, certain indigenous tribes of Brazil perform a ritual dance mimicking the flight of Morpho butterflies after a tribesman's death — a sacred rite designed to help the soul transition to a better world.
My father had never appeared in my dreams before. However, while working on this project, I dreamt that he left me a final videotape recorded just before his death. And although I never actually got to watch it in the dream, I brought that concept to life in reality. The VHS tape harks back to my childhood, serving as a symbol of finality to the story and a visual anchor of the 1990s. I knew I had finally accepted and processed the tragedy when my father appeared in my dreams for a second time. He wore his green plaid shirt and was quietly sorting through books on a shelf. When I entered the room, he hugged me and told me he loved me. I woke up filled with a profound sense of peace, and he has not appeared in my dreams since. By shedding light on the topic of suicide, I break the taboo and empower people who have experienced the loss of loved ones to speak out.
