“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe:
it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”
– Guy de Maupassant
On a sunny afternoon in Manhattan I met with Maria Spann for the first time. As I approached the couch where she was sitting, I could readily feel her calm demeanor and poise. Perhaps this is exactly what inspires the majority of her subjects to pose with such a resolute gaze – I thought to myself.
Right from the start, what had originally been planned as an interview evolved into an intimate conversation. While Spann was born and raised in Sweden, her cultural identity also has strong Estonian roots: her mother and uncle are both Estonians who fled their country in 1944 to escape what would have otherwise been unhappy fates under Russian occupation. These family members were actually the catalyst of Spann’s project for as a child she recalls them evoking memories of this difficult episode in their lives at numerous family gatherings. “My uncle and mother were seven and five years old when they were smuggled with their mother onto the boat Juhan, which made nine journeys from Tallinn to Stockholm in order to transport ethnic Swedes from Estonia to their ancient homeland. My grandfather followed some weeks later in a small rowing boat,” recalls Spann. “A few years ago, when my grandparents passed away, my mother and uncle were the only “real” Estonians left in our family with memories of what their escape from Estonia had been like. I became fascinated by how diverse their accounts of events were from the few stories that my grandparents had shared with us. It is interesting how differently you remember things as a child compared to the stories told by adults. Even the contrast between the memory of a four-year-old and a ten-year-old is amazing!”
For the exhibition at Mehari Sequar Gallery, I chose to unite all 24 photographs under the title: The Heart We Left Behind. It is an homage to the memory of those children of the 1944 Estonian diaspora who were asked to look into the camera of Maria Spann and to expose one object that they brought with them from their home country at that difficult crossroads in their lives. “Almost all of their memories are strongly sensorial,” remarks Spann, “they recall elements such as the smell of the boat, the taste of the bread onboard, and even the chill of the wind outside as they were leaving their country.” Some of the photographic subjects in this project left Estonia thinking that they would return while others traveled with the heavyhearted certainty that they would never again see their homeland.
How does one photograph a memory? With both respect toward the power of a gaze and admiration for the dignified presence of a historical object, the photographic style set forward by Maria Spann can be traced down to the portraiture by August Sander (1876 – 1964). Through his poignant portrait series People of the Twentieth Century, this German photographer aimed to show a societal sample of life during the Weimar Republic. His subjects were therefore everyday citizens standing still for the camera in mundane contexts. And just like Spann’s own project, this body of work was meticulously conceived and organized. Moreover, Sander and Spann each documented people who belong to a moment in history that would have otherwise become a memory alone, destined to survive without a visual witness. The Heart We Left Behind is also a photographic account that strongly resonates in the perils of thousands of migrants today who are still willing to change their fates for the mere hope of a better life in another land. “When visiting the exhibition, explains Spann, “I would like for the viewer to reflect on how these people were once children fleeing war some 75 years ago; and that this is really no different from the children who are fleeing wars today.” The photographs in this series by Maria Spann reflect her “I got my first camera when I was seven years old and have loved taking pictures ever since.” “They are only across the water from each other,” she adds with a smile. – Diana Murray Watts
Maria Spann is a Swedish photographer who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. The ethereal quality of her portraiture has attracted the aesthetic requirements of prominent international print and online media including The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Eye Magazine, The Independent and Telegraph Magazine. She lives with her husband and two children and – in her own humorous words – also photographs the occasional dog.
“I guess the biggest challenge is that these days everyone has a camera that is often quite good, and so it would seem that everyone becomes a photographer. This has changed the meaning of photography and the price that people are prepared to pay for your work. Also, everything being digital makes clients more impatient to get photographs really quickly. Another challenge for me is making time for personal work. Whenever I am not working at my studio, I should just go out and shoot but quite often life and its obligations gets in the way. I also find it challenging to keep up with social media – I only really do Instagram and I know there are all these strategies and tricks you are supposed to follow but I see to do it in bursts.”
“When I first started out digital photography was only just beginning. Now it is all about the moving image and as a photographer you are required to do video as well as stills unless you are one of the big, famous photographers and can choose not to.”
“I grew up in Sweden so I am of course mainly Swedish. But I think Swedish and Estonian cultural traits are not that far from each other in a way. They are only across the water from each other.”
