I Would Rather Not Go Back To The Old House

‘I Would Rather Not Go Back To The Old House’ is a project that is observed through the medium of photography which allows me to not only deal with my feelings and emotions regarding my first romantic experience but also, to document them. It is a project that supports a cathartic process and a focus on an auto-ethnographic approach to research. It is a story of a failed love inspired by my own personal life experiences. Composed of six photos, each with its own meaning and interpretation. The project is explored, through a mixture of my personal narrative and the help of Rider-Waite tarot cards aesthetic and meaning, more specifically from the Major Arcana - The Fool, The Empress, The Lovers, Death, The Hanged man and The Moon - represents my inner thoughts and different stages of happiness and grief when going through a romantic situation.

The Fool, numbered zero in all tarot decks, it can be positioned at the end or end of every Major Arcana. When upright, its keywords are beginnings, innocence and spontaneity. The Fool represents new beginnings, opportunity and potential. It is the card that starts my project and it is a representation of myself and a metaphor for the beginning of something new but also my naiveness.

The Empress is described as a beautiful, full-figured woman with blonde hair and a special aura about her, her keywords are femininity, beauty, and nature among others. This card calls you to connect with your senses through taste, touch, sound, smell and sight and it is a representation of the person I fell in love with. This card can also suggest a metaphorical birth of something new, which in this case is our relationship.

The Lovers represents love, relationships, values, alignments and choices. This card represents conscious connections and meaningful relationships. The arrival of this card in a Tarot reading shows that one might have found a soul mate or a partner for life. This photo serves as a metaphor for my relationship where even though a lot of love was being shared it was always visible that one of the sides had more love, at least from a romantic standpoint.

Death, the keywords are resistance to change, personal transformation and inner purging, this card shows a messenger of death in its illustration and it symbolizes the end of a major phase or aspect in one’s life, similarly, Death shows a time of significant transformation and transition and it is a clear metaphor for the end of my relationship and a specific time of my life.

The Hanged Man, whose keywords are pause, surrender and letting go. This card is a reminder that sometimes we need to put everything on hold before we can take the next step, it can sometimes reflect that one might be feeling stuck or restricted. My photo is a man tied with rope and is a
a metaphor for being stuck and asphyxiating in my thoughts, it is a representation of the period after my loved one left me and represents my lack of ability to move forward with my life.

The Moon, this card is a representation of our fears and illusions and it can indicate a time of uncertainty and illusion, and perhaps that is exactly what it means but for me as of right now it is a metaphor for something that I love but can not interact with, it is something that I am only able to appreciate from afar.

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