Je n’ai rien fait de mal

Je n’ai rien fait de mal – ‘Ever since my first-born could walk, I’ve had a strong feeling of discomfort when I see her in the presence of older men. It is often when their own children are born that adults return to their past, or see it resurface without warning. It took Mika Sperling twenty years to face up to the shadow of her grandfather, the man who abused her for many years. In the family album, she confines him to the status of a shadow, cutting out his silhouette to evoke the threat he may have represented and perhaps also to remove him forever from her life. In the photographs taken in the family setting, a young girl appears, sometimes smiling, sometimes reserved, alongside this taboo and cumbersome presence, ‘the elephant in the room’ as it would be called in England. Some of the photographs are not revealed and are shown from the back, simply described in words that carry a lot of meaning: ‘We’re in our grandfather’s living room. He’s sitting in his armchair with two girls on his lap. I’m one of them. His right hand is on my hip, his left hand on the other girl’s breast. These family archives are set against more recent photographs taken by Mika Sperling on the path between her birthplace and her grandfather’s house. Elusive snapshots that bring back memories. On a few pages, a baby appears, embodying the purity of childhood, which she saw vanish at a very young age but which her own daughter must preserve at all costs. Between these images, a conversation takes place between the photographer and her grandfather, opening with the latter’s words ‘I did nothing wrong’. With the culprit now dead, this scenario is imagined. But it remains an outlet and a doorway to healing.