"I am a second-generation image-maker, my mother studied photography at Columbia College in Chicago in the 1990’s. After her studies she met my father, fell in love, I was conceived, and they travelled through Europe together. Both of my parents saw the freedom that Amsterdam had to offer and thought it was a better place to raise a child than in Chicago. My parents packed up their most precious belongings and immigrated to The Netherlands with me.
My mother tried to pursue her photographic career after separating with my father however it was hard to make a living from her photography while being a single parent and a foreigner. She made the decision to devote all her energy towards my upbringing.
At the age of nineteen, with the encouragement of my mother I chose to study photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, I decided to immigrate to Belgium.
The research project 'A Resilient Archive' questions the desire and urgency to archive. My mother’s archive has resisted the wear and tear of the seasons, time and movement from one country to another. It is a resilient archive which I through printing, publishing and distributing want to activate. A second chapter of my MFA graduation project 'Next of Kin' but now with a different methodology and output. I want to digest the past so that I can look forward."
- Oxiea Villamonte
(image: Photograph taken by my father of my mother photographing, me in the foreground in Cappadocia, Turkey in 1998, part of 'A Resilient Archive')
