ABSENTIA (2019)
kyle malanda
Malawi
Artist statement
“When my sister passed away, I found comfort in her Facebook page. ABSENTIA is a photo-collage series exploring grief in the digital age. I thought about what it means to grieve in the digital age, how social media accounts serve as digital archives of our lives, and the weight of one’s digital presence against that of their physical absence.
I created photographs of intimate sibling moments then carefully collaged text, photographs, and other materials archives from my late sister’s Facebook page. There, she is still alive.
I couldn’t attend her funeral because I was studying abroad. This loneliness and isolation in our grief is a cruel reality for many people in the diaspora. What’s different about the digital age is that we access archived memories and our communities through technology and social media, eroding some of the physical and geographic limitations faced by those who migrated before us.”
— kyle malanda
“When my sister passed away, I found comfort in her Facebook page. ABSENTIA is a photo-collage series exploring grief in the digital age. I thought about what it means to grieve in the digital age, how social media accounts serve as digital archives of our lives, and the weight of one’s digital presence against that of their physical absence.
I created photographs of intimate sibling moments then carefully collaged text, photographs, and other materials archives from my late sister’s Facebook page. There, she is still alive.
I couldn’t attend her funeral because I was studying abroad. This loneliness and isolation in our grief is a cruel reality for many people in the diaspora. What’s different about the digital age is that we access archived memories and our communities through technology and social media, eroding some of the physical and geographic limitations faced by those who migrated before us.”
— kyle malanda