RESIDENTS 2018 - 2019
Retirement homes. Place for most of us considered sad and boring. However, these establishments are, when you spend time there and share certain moments with their residents, full of life.
It was this vibrant atmosphere full of different people with different personalities that I wanted to capture. I went from room to room to take these portraits in the only personal environment they have left. Some personal effects, photo albums, memories of a lifetime stored in a small wicker box, family photos hanging on the walls and drawings of their grandchildren, great grandchildren remind them of their life before and allow them to feel less alone.
During these meetings we take the measure of the history of each of them and all the incredible things they have experienced. They tell a whole bunch of anecdotes about their life with a certain enthusiasm to be able to speak, relate and exchange with a new person. Some have a natural good humor, others a pronounced humor ... The film camera that I had with me often served as a starting point for dialogue, surely bringing back memories of good times spent with the family.
Some residents are here with their husbands / wives, I have never seen a couple so loving and caring for each other as here. These couples live in symbiosis, they depend on each other to live. They also realize that their time is running out, they make the most of it.
When we discuss more deeply with each one, everyone is clear about their condition and the fact that they are at the end of their life. It is also important but also disturbing to know that perhaps, for many residents this will be the last true portrait of them alive.
I carried out this work with particular pleasure in photographing these people with facial features marked by the years, making them all the more beautiful. But also it relates more personally the condition of one of my grandmother and one of my grandfather, suffering from Alzheimer's disease who went through this kind of establishment by obligation. I was able to find residents with the same background as them, and it was touching to see the similarities and handicaps linked to this disease. Like the fact that they become children again in their heads, find a certain form of innocence despite their incoherent remarks and speak without filter. Their memory takes them back decades and does not realize where they are or how old they really are.
Images and texts subject to copyright: © Lucas Frayssinet
