Works on view:

You Should Meet My Mother
PH Museum
2016 — Ongoing, Brooklyn | Ottawa

The relationship between mothers and daughters is a complex one and can culminate in either disjuncture or solidity. Often this culminates as the girl comes of age. For me, this critical point coincided with my parents' divorce through which I watched my mother's resolve fray. I'd only ever known her as a parental figure and though she had gotten me through so much, her fragility through this period caused me to pull away.

This visual love letter is a story about my fight to find my way back to her.

As we grow up, we unavoidably grow away from our mothers. In the body of work, this theme is layered with the sub-narrative of a woman discovering her own identity post-divorce, which challenged not only her relationship with, her daughter, but also herself. Her self-discovery, as seen within the series, mirrors the way I, too, was able to once again come to know her - this time in an entirely new light; adult to adult.

While making this series, I learned about my mothers's pain and her ambitions. Crucially, I saw that even at 55, the longing to shares one's life with someone else never dies. I saw her get her heart broken, then fall in love again and eventually walked her down the aisle before her 60th birthday.

It is my intention to show this development within my mother through the dynamic between her and the camera as the series progresses.

Kristina Dittmar

New York | Toronto