In 1989, at eighteen years old, Sonia Marin left her hometown of Padua, Italy to pursue her artistic ambitions in the bustling city of Milan. As her professional opportunities expanded, and her photographic career began to take form, she still found the intimate comforts of her childhood home hard to shake. At the start of every single weekend of her first two years in Milan, Marin would jump on the Milan-Venice intercity train and make her way back home to Padua.

For over thirty years now, Padua has maintained a special place in Marin’s psyche. In “Family Rolls,” a series of twelve medium-format images—one single roll of film— she captures, through a nostalgic haze, the snapshots of her hometown that have stayed so present in her mind and memories. She welcomes us, the viewers, to share in her bittersweet melancholy—that wistful mix of comfort and displacement that always comes with returning to a childhood home, where everything is still exactly where you left it, but nothing will ever be the same.

Marin’s “Family Rolls” opens with a sumptuous, sun-kissed still of her family’s collection of antique clocks, which are gathered together on a cream tablecloth, perfectly framed by the fading rays of sun. None of these six clocks display the same time: where one reads 11:05, another reads 7:50. With this symbolic marker of the fluidity of time, we understand that we are now entering the non-linear space of Marin’s memories, which will guide us, and weave us, in and out of the many dream-like vignettes that make up Marin’s past.

For one of the first stops on our tour, Marin takes us back to her childhood classroom, where empty chairs, left slightly askew, evoke the unsettling absence of what used to be. A poster on the wall depicting a map of Northern Italy, captured at an upward angle and slightly out of focus, foreshadows the journey Marin would soon take away from her hometown, in pursuit of her dreams, and the life she would soon build as a photographer, author, and lecturer in Milan.

We leave the classroom and make our way to Marin’s family home, stopping to take in the impressive lines of Padua’s classical architecture as they contrast with a deep blue sky, and to admire the delicate light of the setting sun as it plays with shadows on the ochre walls. We’ve travelled back home, to meet Marin’s mother.

For Marin, her visits to Padua have always been first and foremost “a precious opportunity to make [her] mother feel like the most loved person in the entire Universe,” and as viewers, we can truly feel the sense of importance accorded to this matriarch: Marin’s mother is the only person to be featured in “Family Rolls,” and she appears in only one shot. Her back is turned to us, and, with curlers in her hair, she dons a muted pink bathrobe. This private sight is not something a stranger would normally be privy to, but through Marin’s eyes, we are granted a deeply personal glimpse into her family’s domestic sphere. The softness of the light and the hues in the image create a warm and welcoming atmosphere, and underline the great love and intimacy that exist between this daughter and her mother.

“Family Rolls” is a collection of memories, a journal of the moments—the sights, smells, and sounds—that are forever imbedded in Marin’s mind. Each square image seems to exist in some liminal space, accessible to Marin at any time of day. She could be sitting on that intercity train making her way back to Padua and, closing her eyes, she replays, over and over, these little glimpses of the home that awaits her. “I take my pictures the same way, sitting in my single seat,” Marin writes. “Waiting for that melancholy to guide me towards beauty and, never missing a detail, I try to make sure I'm always there.”

You can see more of Sonia Marin’s work on her website and her Instagram.

Jan 26 Going Back Home: Sonia Marin’s “Family Rolls”

Jan 27 Photography and the American Magazine

Jan 26 Tuesday Reads: Christo & Jeanne-Claude

Related Posts