Students' interviews - Ioanna Enezli “Her Memory” Interview with Ypatia Kornarou - Moments Collective
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Author Ypatia Kornarou
1. Your photographic project, “Her Memory,” is a series of images filled with emotion. What does memory mean to you? How does it relate to your life?
Memory is what connects us to the past and shapes our identity. It consists of traces deeply embedded within us. Through our memories, we bring back moments, emotions, and experiences that have left their mark on us and helped us grow.
Our memories guide us and give us the strength to move forward. Without them, we would be like an empty book, without identity or purpose. Memory is the only place we can retreat to when the world around us begins to collapse.
Through my lens, I tried to capture the feeling of those moments that allow us to recognize ourselves. If we do not remember, we cannot truly understand who we are.
What I have lived and do not remember never truly existed. What I remember and continue to relive remains alive.
Memory is the greatest journey of all.
@Ioanna Enezli
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2. Everything is time. How do you approach the concept of time in relation to the stillness of photography?
Photography may appear static, but for me it does not stop time; it condenses it. Within a single frame, the past, the present, and often the feeling of an unknown future coexist.
I believe memory is what resists oblivion. It is the way time leaves its imprint upon us. Photography may ultimately be the deepest proof that someone or something truly existed.
What we remember does not belong solely to the past. It continues to live within us.
In Her Memory, I was interested precisely in this meeting point between time and memory as a feeling. Memory is something that constantly changes, fades, and reconstructs itself in different ways. I wanted to explore that fragile territory between what we remember and what slips away.
The photographs do not simply tell the story of how memory resides within us. They reveal how memory transforms experience and ultimately shapes our identity.
The images function more as traces than as evidence. They are whispers of a presence that insists on remaining, even when the body is no longer there.
After experiencing a profound personal loss, the project acquired a different meaning, one it did not have when I first created it.
At that time, I was photographing memory.
Today, without ever intending it, those same images have become vessels of presence. They no longer speak only about the past. They speak about the continuity of bonds beyond absence.
Photography freezes a moment, but memory continues to move within it.
Memory is like a garment we wear on our bodies.
Just as a garment wears down, carries scents, marks, repairs, and losses, protects us and sometimes weighs heavily upon us, so too does memory. So too does time.
My photographs do not attempt to defeat time. That would be impossible.
What I want them to do is enter into a dialogue with it.
Perhaps that is why I love photography. Because it can transform something fleeting into a silent yet enduring presence.
@Ioanna Enezli
3. What does it mean to you when someone stands in front of your camera?
I never see the person I photograph as a subject. I see them as a story that is entrusting me with a small piece of itself.
In this particular project, for example, my mother did not stand before the camera as a model. She was a person carrying ninety years of life, experiences, losses, and memories. I felt a responsibility to approach her with respect and sensitivity.
Whenever someone stands before my lens, a relationship of trust is created. I am not interested in exposing something by force, nor in extracting emotion. What interests me is creating the space for something genuine to emerge.
@Ioanna Enezli
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4. Is a photographic frame simply a composition of visual elements, or is it also a reflection of our emotional state?
I believe every photographic frame is a choice. We choose what to show, what to leave outside the frame, and from what distance we position ourselves in relation to what we are photographing.
For this reason, I do not see photography as merely an arrangement of shapes, light, and shadow. Even when we are unaware of it, every photograph carries something of who we are.
In my work, blur, symbolism, objects, and details were not used solely for aesthetic purposes. They were ways of speaking about memory, decay, time, and the fragile nature of human existence.
In that sense, every photograph is both an image of the world and an image of our inner landscape.
@Ioanna Enezli
5. Can the photographic process be therapeutic?
For me, absolutely.
Photography is a way of processing the things that occupy my mind and giving form to emotions that often cannot be expressed through words.
I do not photograph to find answers. I photograph to better understand the questions that accompany me.
Through observation, patience, and the creative process itself, I discover a different way of communicating with myself.
Photography allows me to maintain a dialogue with who I am, with what I am living through, and with what I have lived through. It allows me to return to moments that once existed and to recognize their value even more deeply.
@Ioanna Enezli
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6. Idea or emotion? How do you approach the themes of your work?
Usually, everything begins with an emotion.
There is something that touches me, troubles me, or stays with me for a long time.
The idea comes later, as a way of organizing that inner experience and giving it a visual form.
I am not particularly interested in photography as simple documentation. I photograph when I feel the need to tell a story. Images are the language through which I express my inner world.
For that reason, in my work, idea and emotion do not operate in opposition to one another. Emotion is the starting point, while the idea is the vehicle that allows it to become an image.
@Ioanna Enezli
@Ioanna Enezli
The Moments Collective Team @2026
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