"Portugal Is Not Black and White"

When my mother told me stories about her childhood and youth in the mountains of northern Portugal, I always imagined them in black and white — like old films or faded photographs. One day, she said to me:

“Portugal is not black and white. Back then, the world was even more colourful than it is today.”

But despite her words, I was never able to see it that way. In my mind, those stories remained monochrome — vivid, but in shades of grey.

In 2017, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Since then, I’ve been carrying this idea with me: to document her world — the one I only know through stories — in exactly the way I imagined it as a child.

That’s why I photograph this project exclusively in black and white, and mostly on 35mm film. I want to preserve the mood, the feeling, and the timelessness of those memories — even if they are not my own.

My mother is the eldest of seven siblings. She left school at the age of 12 to care for her younger brothers and sisters while my grandparents worked in the fields all day long. Life was hard but beautiful at the same time. At 17, she emigrated to Switzerland to work and build a better future.

I was born in Zurich in 1987, and I only know rural Portugal through our summer holidays. Every year, we returned to my mother's village — and even now, I continue that tradition with my own wife and children.

Since 2017, I have been photographing in and around the village during each visit. This project is a way for me to deal with my mother’s illness — and to keep her stories alive, in the visual language of my childhood imagination.

This Project is dedicated to my mother.

My Mother in October 2025