Mothers on Earth- Moments Gone and Yet Present

Aliza Auerbach

Decades of work as a photographer, and my personal experience of dealing with both being a child and being a mother, have led to many thousands of pictures.

Face to face with the moments that I was able to caapture on paper, are the moments, which remain as pictures only in my head and haunt me. Their presence is my memory. Here are three such moments:

China

I dont speak Chinese and yet I plan to take photographs in several institutions around the country. This means that I need the official help of the Association of Chinese Photographers. So at each place I visit, a team consisting at least of an interpreter, a tourist guide, a chauffeur and policeman sometimes a policewoman awaits me. Of course, I would prefer to wander about on my own, or, at most, in the company of a person I feel comfortable with. But here the decision concerning my entourage is in the hands of the authorities.

We have reached Guilin a beautiful landscape. Peculiar humps the hills on both sides of the river Li. The Guilin team discusses the schedule with me. We set out early in the morning. I take photographs in a factory. Mothers with children in many rooms, working. Some embroider, some weave, others decorate giant chinese vases. We leave the gloomy building; outside, a bright day awaits us. The sun shines pleasantly and a light wind stirs the branches of the trees. We approach our car. But there, behind a low wall surrounding the gloomy building, is a frail woman, thin, in rags. She holds out a hand to us, begging, the other hand rests on the shoulder of her child, who must be about eight years. Her eyes are half-closed, her pupils move aimlessly from one side to the other. She is blind.

While I rummage around in my bag for some coins, I try with the camera before my eyes to find a favourable angle. A hand appears before the lens; I am roughly pushed into the car, the door is slammed shut and the driver takes off at speed.

"It is forbidden to give her charity. It is forbidden to take photographs of such people. The state takes care of its citizens!" the interpreter shouts at me. She doesnt understand that it is not the relationship between the state and its citizen I wanted to capture, but the bond between this mother and her child. I am angry, because I have experienced oppression, and was prevented from helping this miserable woman. Gone, gone. And I know this picture will always remain with me.

Papua New Guinea

A driver without a shirt. A crown of ferns and flowers perched on the tiny curls of his head. He waits for me in the evening at the airport to take me to a small hotel.

During my many trips abroad I have learned to go to the market, if you really want to get to know a place and its people. The next day is a market day. A colourful, not very big market with all kinds of fruit and vegetables, but also musical instruments and objects for rituals and ceremonies. Most of the vendors are women, their children jumping and running around them. I wander about, am curious and touch everything that interests me. Suddenly, behind me, the loud sound of a slap, accompanied by a piercing yell. I quickly turn around and catch a glimpse of a screaming child, being dragged away forcibly by his mother who continues to beat him. Automatically, I lift the camera to my eye. But I dont take a picture. I cant. Gone and yet present.

In New Guinea Ive felt that in the relationship between mothers and their children, there are quite a number of moments of anger, dispute, screaming and sometimes real hate and violence. I had made a decision at the beginning of my work not to photograph such moments. The truth is that even if I had wanted to, it would have been difficult for me to capture these incidents. They are intimate moments, embarrassing to the eye of a stranger, and daunting to the exposing camera.

Austria

Visiting a friend in Vienna in an elegant neighbourhood in the centre of the city, I open an inconspicuous gate and see a beautifully-tended square with a lawn, flowers and trees. There are paths leading to the elegant houses surrounding the square. Suddenly a scream cuts through the silence, ebbing away to a long sobbing moan. I look around, the quiet house fronts betray nothing. Later, in my friends flat, we are in the middle of a conversation, when I again hear the scream. This time its very near, behind the wall.

"My neighbour. Shes rather old, and mentally disturbed," explains my friend. "Sometimes, when she begins to scream and cry in her confusion, music can calm her down. Particularly Schubert. Her daughter lives with her and looks after her, but she has to go to work and when her mother is alone at home with her misery, I play music for her." He goes to the stereo and puts on Der Tod und das Mädchen at full volume. The crying becomes fainter, and eventually ceases.

I take up my bag with my camera, wanting to capture all this. I go to the door and dont know how to preserve it. But I wont be able to take photographs there. Gone. Yet always present.

Photographs which are long gone yet always present present as the negatives of my memory. Captured as experiences, experienced as a gift.