Our far away ones are light,
Our living ones are grim

N.R.M. – Lohkija-lohkija (2003)

Home movie, family video chronicles, home videos, records of everyday life, private films, amateur filming, life registration – all these are different names for the same process: preserving the memory of moments and events that are important for an individual or a community of people. The kalyska.archive project aims to remind us of the importance of a careful attitude to the history of our living ones and those far away.

Everything that a person lives with today, here and now, and that at the time of living may seem ordinary, routine, insignificant and even unpleasant, in 15-20 years will be an occasion for nostalgia. In 30-40 years, it will become the most valuable material for research and study of the traditions and rituals of the past of one’s family and loved ones. In a century, it will be wrapped in a museum collection and become one of the foundations on which descendants will rely. Generations of those who will link their existence with the now invisible, distant times and will seek their roots in past stories of everyday life and the “ordinary” life that is common to all people. In everyday life, “not ordinariness” and even great preciousness of which is not immediately obvious.