*Aimez-vous l'orage*, 07 © Fiona Segadães Da Silva

How did your series Aimez-vous l'orage? come to be?

Three years ago, I was deeply involved in understanding and accepting my emotions. This research followed a specific period of mourning where I had stopped my photographic practice for a while. When I started my photographic practice again, it was almost a vital need. Already working from texts written by my great-grandfather, many links resonated between his words and my images. In fact, this series was therefore a circuitous way to create a bond between us.

*Aimez-vous l'orage*, 06 © Fiona Segadães Da Silva

Were there any challenges that came up while working on this project?

I think it was accepting the feeling of vulnerability that pushed me to want to make images.

*Aimez-vous l'orage*, 04 © Fiona Segadães Da Silva

What do you want the viewer to take away from this series?

I am deeply inspired by the concept of saudade and also by intergenerational transmission. In this project, I tried to create a dialogue with my great-grandfather Herminio. It’s a common melancholy and a vulnerability that we share the central point of the project.

Describe your creative process in one word?

It’s certainly: psychic.

*Aimez-vous l'orage*, 08 © Fiona Segadães Da Silva

What motivates you to pursue image-making?

I prefer images to words, gestures and moving bodies reveal more clues than words. I guess that's why I'm very sensitive to photography. Having grown up in a difficult environment, my photographic practice allowed me to take a step back, to build myself as an individual and it is sometimes a tool that I use to find meaning. The practice of photography is cathartic, it's a way of reclaiming reality, an attempt to create a place and to exist in a different way and not just through my social condition.

The images of others are also a source of motivation for me, the way they grip me, carry me away, relieve me. I think I'm just in love with the images and it pushes me to do my own.