A film I made that is very dear to my heart! I explained some of the thought process behind the video below if you’re interested.
The babushkas (Russian nesting dolls) in “It Hurts to Say Goodbye” were hand sewn and embroidered with embroidery floss, thread, stuffing, and muslin fabric. When I was little my grandparents gave my sister and I different toys to play with, one of which was a russian nesting doll (or a babushka as we liked to call it). I wanted to take the concept of the russian nesting dolls and create a stuffed form instead of the typical carved wood. While there have been stuffed animals or pin cushions that are in the shape of babushkas, I have never encountered one that could be taken apart like the hollow ones made of wood. This is most likely because with fabric, you would have to destroy the doll to reach the next one, and the next one, etc. I wanted to play with this idea of something that is temporary in which once one layer has been shredded, it cannot be replaced.
Likewise, when one tries to deconstruct a memory, it cannot be put back together again. The song “Comment te Dire Adieu?” by Francoise Hardy is the French adaptation of the song “It Hurts to Say Goodbye”. While the English to French translation is not direct, essentially the song is a farewell, but while it hurts to say goodbye, there are memories that time cannot erase because they’ll always be in the person’s heart. For me personally, making this piece made me think of my own experience growing up. While I can shed my culture or my memories of people or events, they’ll always stay with me in my heart, but the experiences are temporary; I will never be able to relive them.
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