~ Oceans of Change ~

Oceans of Change, 2019, digital projection, 54x96”, duration ongoing.

Artist in Residence, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, May – October 2019.

Arriving in Halifax on March 27, 1926 on the ship Carinthia, my great grandfather became the first of my family to arrive in Canada. Eventually other family members followed, including my parents, who were both born and raised in Croatia. As a first generation Canadian, this project allowed me to look at both personal and collective experiences of immigration through the photographic image. Over the course of the residency, images were collected from various sources: my own family’s photo collection, the museum’s archive, and new portraits of visitors taken on site. Engaging with visitors and listening to their familial experiences proved to be both a challenging and rewarding insight into both the struggle and optimism that immigration to Canada brings. This large-scale video projection brings past and present together in a continually moving display of images, representing the long journey made my immigrants.