HOND - NADIA ETTWEIN SOUTH AFRICA (2023)
I was told my mother threw me away like a dog - I’ve never stopped believing that.
We were discarded children in a time when my country was struggling with its demons.
I’m Nadia. Born (.84) and raised all over South Africa.
My sister was three when mom left dad in 1989.
We were raised by parents who fought private battles within a faltering political ideology.
There was sickness outside and at home.
My father joined the South African Army, and my mother legally wrote me off.
I was adopted.
Had Multiple stepparents.
Absence of love.
I am afflicted by my ancestry and heredity.
There are always people who give you up. My work relates to dissociating from painful memories, trauma, rejection, and my current experiences. You find yourself in a situation of instability and displacement of post-apartheid, religion, and child welfare, trying to grow up as a solid human in-between the neglect. There are beginnings and endings, balance and imbalance, and the betweenness which forms a collective memory.
Abuse isn’t poetic, nor was being raised as an Afrikaans girl.
https://www.nadiaettwein.com/gallery
