MARIA BABIKOVA

1. MOTHERHOOD
2. Failed Adaptations
   
3. Systems of Order - p.1
4. Systems of Order - p.2
5. Harmony
6. Sequential Observations
7. MIXED
   

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FAILED ADAPTATIONS
My great-grandmother had 12 children, and only 5 of them survived.

This (last image in this series) is of my family on my mother’s side, taken around the late 60’s. It looks older. There are a lot of children and not many adults on it. The adults died during WWII and my grandmother had to adopt all the (little) children you see in this image.
This is not the start of it all but it is where I have begun, as it is the first visual appearance I have of my mother.

The visual essay that follows is about self-initiated “adventures” or escapes. There is a lot of it now in the world, and there will be even more. 

Images representing the loss, that has been built into the narrative of my family and the whole country. They are different degrees of escapism, through anger, aggression, depression, acceptance and dreaming.  It is an examination different forms of adaptation and the psychological weight of inherited loss, how people navigate change—sometimes by choice, but more often because they have to.

Negotiating numerous situations and temporary solutions within the void left by the rejection of old dogmas, but still an empty placeholder to fill. Always adapting oneself to the endless variations rather than being an integral part of a period or a place.

If you eat the fish in a dream, does it count? Does it mean you’ve eaten the fish?


                       

@Maria Babikova2025