Heavier than heaven…

[In Progress] One day, I came home from school a little later than usual. It was a typical Dutch afternoon, with soft sunlight breaking through the clouds. As I stepped inside, I found my mother and uncles waiting with sudden news: we had to pack everything. I can’t even remember what I chose to bring.

Why we had to suddenly leave everything behind is not my story to tell. Not now, not at this moment... What is for me to tell is how it made me feel and the search I have been on ever since. The search for a father in fatherly figures. The search of what actually is, or feels, like home. It is something that has changed me for the rest of my life. A unmistakable pain and complex emotions which sometimes is forgotten that little boys and eventually grown men can experience, too...

No matter how old I get, the little boy is still inside me. He screams and he wants out. And sometimes he feels powerless. No matter how strong he gets.

He will always ask the questions and doubt reality. Why had it to be this way? Will I ever get where I want to be? And why is it so difficult to answers all of these questions without a parent?

A sister becomes a mother. Another sister becomes an incredible friend. A little boy becomes a man.

All of it feels like an heavenly voyage which always be in my life. A path that needs to be followed no matter of free will. But definitely dependent on how the cosmic winds blow.

Eventually I have became a man that I have always wanted to be. Firm, like a rock. Or a tree. With his base and roots deep in the ground. But the search goes on...

"Heavier than heaven…" is a series of photographs that interweaves the real and the imagined. It’s a tapestry of moments from Cristian’s life. Where the universe serves as a bridge to show scenarios from alternate timelines, glimpses of potential futures, and encounters with the present. This body of work attempts to fill the void left by a life once lost. It honours those who now reside in heaven, those who shaped Cristian’s world, even as their absence echoes through it. It’s a meditation on healing. Becoming a man. A search for identity and belonging, and creating a new life after he had to leave everything.

A search for who and what is home…

This series is still in progress and is subject to evolvement and change…