AMY KANKA
INNER GARDENS
In the summer of 2015
I relocated from our home in Israel to Santa Monica, California.
While this move holds the promise of many new opportunities, it also means I have to leave behind my two grown up sons, our house and garden I have tended for the last 10 years.
This Inner Garden series started as way of saying goodbye to my life in Israel, as well as an attempt to create something I can take with me across the ocean. Through the process of photographing,
I realized these images capture more than ‘things’. They capture my very mixed feelings towards this move. Sadness, longing, anticipation, excitement and all the nuances in between.
In most images, I photographed seeds symbolizing the separation between ‘mother plant’ and its ‘children’ as well as a visual depiction of moving on to new places – a ‘stand in’ for myself.
I shot this series between February and May 2015 starting in the garden and slowly moving to the bedroom, my goldsmith studio and my son’s room. While the seeds may seem as the ‘main actor’, for me, it is the background that plays the more important role. It is the background that captures the color, movement and sometimes the outline of the things I will not be able to take with me across the ocean – the collection of Alexander Dumas’ antique books, the light on my son’s pillow,
the afternoon light in the studio, the sky and lemon tree I see from the window, the first light filtered through the white bedroom curtains.
Read the full article on Israeli Lens Magazine Issue #11 Still Life Photography
