Concept
In childhood, everything felt different. Ordinary places seemed endless, everyday events felt like real adventures, and the familiar world was both captivating and frightening. But was it truly like that, or did our memory preserve it that way? Yesterday or never—a series of photographs on the border of reality, memories, and dreams.
Using photography and artificial intelligence, I reinterpret images from the past, striving not to recreate the events themselves, but the feelings associated with them. That unique reality of childhood, where the ordinary became extraordinary, and every new day felt like an entire world.
This is a visual exploration of how memory transforms reality, blurring the lines between what was, what we dreamed, and what we invented ourselves. This is not a collection of childhood photos. These are photos of what childhood felt like.
Each photograph, instead of a title, is accompanied by a description of the feeling that remains in memory. These words do not recount what happened; rather, they convey what was felt in that moment, allowing the viewer not only to experience someone else’s memory but also to find something of their own within it.
Photo 1. We count to three, but we still jump earlier. The wind tangles in our hair; something stills in our stomachs. For a moment, everything goes so quiet, as if the entire world remains down below. It seems we hang in the air a little longer than we should. And no one hurries to check if it’s true.
Photo 2. At the same table, the difference between us almost disappears. I want to move with such ease, to speak with such confidence, to know everything about the world. Next to her, I feel different—almost just as much like her. Sometimes I wish someone would notice this and say it out loud. That we are much more alike than others think.
