Growing up and growing old

Weaving together experiences

Hello!

This is a first for me and a first for you hearing from me via email (probably, unless we work together, hi again then!). Usually I use this way of communication for work because it separates my personal sphere from the professional, something that seems very formal. But as everything is intertwining, all areas are becoming one now. So the email can be intimate, uncensored, maybe even one of the last spaces of true autonomy on the web. Who thought something believed to be almost dead can be joyful again?

Being a kid of the early internet days I remember the excitement we had about this medium, my first email address was hermine140294@aol.com. A true millennial. And forever I will cherish the story of my grandmother writing me a postcard to notify me she had received my mail. We all have a learning experience of how to live online every generation in their own pace just as we do with each other face to face.

So this is my experiment on how to tell stories in better ways, explore the process behind my work but also the one of fellow colleagues. I am not sure where exactly I will be going with this but its fun to start with an open mind and see where we land.

I am starting with a story dear to my heart about my grandmother Ulla and Bonnie. And Mine and myself. Four generations of women coming together on a sunny weekend sharing ideas, cake and tea. Its shoots like this that make my heart bloom for weeks after they passed.

Photography: Clara Nebeling

Styling: Mine Uludag

Models: Bonnie and Ulla

Special thanks to Amba Amba and Malaika Raiss

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO FEEL SAFE, BONNIE?

A bed..my bed…or actually any bed. Its so warm and cosy and you can just curl up in it.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO FEEL SAFE, OMA?

To feel safe I need a home. A place where I can do whatever I want and feel at ease.

I call my grandmother every few days to check in, see how she is doing and also reflect on how I am doing. It’s her calm outlook on life that grounds me, the help I need with my garden, a chat about the weather in the UK and Germany. A small gesture of being connected in a world where people of different ages are mostly kept apart by design. 

There is something special and so ordinary about interlinking generations. It’s what got us here as humans at the end of the day, thousands of years of passing knowledge from one age to the next and yet we must make our own experiences in our individual frameworks to truly judge which advice to take and therefore pass on and which to discard. It feels like a certain form of nostalgia passing on the things you learned, a wish to a younger version to not make the same mistakes. 

When Mine and me planned this project is was clear to both of us that we need a second layer to the pictures to weave together her teenage daughter Bonnie and my 83 year old grandmother. The shoot was originally centred as a dedication to people we love but became more a 4 way conversation as we mixed our loved ones. 

Mine’s older daughter Lotta came up with these short but telling questions. You can listen to the answers here in German with a short English translation.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF, OMA?

I like about myself that I still find joy in many things, I am interested in many things and sometimes even enraged by them but even that I like. I am still part of life.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF, BONNIE?

What I like about myself the most are my jokes, my humour. I find myself very funny.

When I listen back to their answers side by side I can see both perspectives and the inbetween that I might be currently in. Teenagehood is a time when the world still very much has you at the centre and your future is open to the chaos of possibilities infront of you. Bonnie’s craving for more beautiful clothes is something a lot of us experienced at that age. At the same time I am listening to my grandmother talking about a life well lived but most of it has already passed. Together those two perspectives weave together lives on opposite ends of the age spectrum. 

Mine also asked me two questions (aswell as me asking some back) so we can further dig into our intergenerational melange. 

Mine asked me: What do you put effort in and what couldn’t you live without?

As she asked them they seemed like separate questions but I realised that for me they are ultimately very connected. 

I could never live without the people I love

I could never live without my creative expression

I could never live without a functioning body

My personal top 3. 

The effort is in trying to call my family, remembering my friends birthday, giving flowers to people who need them, writing postcards to my girlfriend, reading books to keep my mind going, keeping track of my ideas, take a walk, take a rest, cook a good meal. We link effort to work and achievement mostly but all the things we love most deserve our effort, maybe specially those. What does your effort look like from a communal perspective instead of the individual one? is the question I am gonna leave for us today. Feel free to write me the answer! I am curious

WHAT ARE YOU PROUD OF ?

OMA:

I am proud of having lived my life beautifully and put effort into it. That I found joy in many parts of life. And of course of my children and grandchildren

BONNIE:

I am proud of my A in my biology test.

I asked Mine what is the best thing she learned about raising two daughters:

Mine:

For a relationship you don't need money, knowledge, talent or beauty. No clothes, rules, gifts or power or great ideas and surprises - you don't have to be super strong, especially good or always happy - a relationship is an unconditional for each other. A togetherness . And a together .

IF EVERYTHING WAS SUDDENLY POSSIBLE, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

If everything was suddenly possible…I would buy a lot of clothes. Hmm or just have a lot of money..then I could get something from the bakery everyday and buy clothes and do a lot of activities. And I would get cats.

If everything was possible…if everything was possible, whatever I felt like doing..I would really love to travel. But now I am older its not as easy anymore so thats why I cant travel anymore.

SUNDAY RECOMMENDATIONS:

Girl, Women, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

A beautiful take on the intertwining of different generations of womanhood written from a deep understanding of holding multiples identities.

Björk and Robin Wall Kimmerer on Artforum podcast

A great conversation between two extraordinary minds on nature, music and the connection between them.

Listen here

futureme.com

Write a letter to your future self, forget about it and be surprised. The first time I used this website I was 16 and wrote a birthday message to my 22 year old self which is one of my most treasured letters now.

My grandma’s famous apricot “Blechkuchen'“ (cake on a tray)

topping: 2 cans of peaches or apricots drained

dough: 400gr flour, 250gr butter, 150gr sugar, 4 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extra, little bit of salt (eine Prise!), 1tsp backing powder

crumble: 300 gr of flour, 200gr butter, 200gr sugar

Make the dough and spread it on a greased tray, top with with apricots and crumble and bake for 25 minutes on 200 degrees.

I could not find a picture of it. But please send me one if you ever make it! 

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