Marine snow refers to the slow descent of organic and inorganic particles that falls from the upper layers of the ocean. The term takes its name from the way these particles aggregate: they resemble snowflakes, drifting down to the darkness of the deep sea. During the descent, they are broken down by micro-organisms, feeding life on the seafloor where sunlight cannot penetrate.

This work gathers fragments from my archive, from 2018 to 2023: travels, work, private moments, friends and strangers. But above all, it holds the two ends of a period: the sudden death of my father, and five years later, that of my mother. I looked into my archive for traces of how I had already moved through loss, and perhaps a way to do so again. Marine Snow is not, however, a project about grief, but rather a reflection on the notion of memory and the ways in which photography interferes with it.

As Joan Didion wrote “Time passes, memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.” But more than anything, memory is built, constructed upon the personal, familial, and environmental changes that we witness.

A memory that drifts without chronology, where everything is destined sooner or later to sink, and to nourish the present.

Finalist @DongGang International Photo Festival 2023