The person I chose for both poses was my step-mother.
The first pose was the concrete pose. Despite most people thought that it was a pose of questioning another person, or perplexity in front of an art work, it was something that my mom always does when she forgets what she was about to do. It perhaps came out a little too dramatic/theatrical than I expected it to be, but it’s something that when I see it, I picture my mother right away. Because she’s an extremely busy woman, she’s always doing 15000 things at the same time, so it happens very often that she forgets what she was doing. With this pose I also wanted to incorporate her very youthful ego: she has a lot of energy and everyone always thinks she’s much younger than her actual age, and I think the pose I chose was not one of a 40-year-old woman, but rather a 30-year-old one.
The abstract pose I chose had very deep roots. My mother was the last of 7 children, 5 of which males. She had never been supported by anyone in her family, even when she went to college (something that back then in Italy was reserved to an elite of people) and she was working full time so that she wouldn’t have to ask money to her parents, they told her she was crazy. Even being a 30-year-old responsible mother, she was still being checked on by her father, who would always come ask us where she was and why she wasn’t at home with us the whole time. Her male-dominated family never valued her opinion, and even her sister(who should have allied with her against the attacks of her brothers) always criticized her. Now that we moved here, my mother is finally free to be, or at least more free. Her family still tells her she’s crazy because she moved here. The arms spread out, as if opposing something represent her strength in always being able to push away that criticism and become the amazing woman she is. The head thrown back, looking up, is her wish, partly accomplished, of being free to do what she wants. The foot forward, finally, symbolizes that she always went forward no matter all the negative that surrounded her.
Sara Camnasio