Intimate photos of a senior love triangle | Isadora Kosofsky

74,096 views ・ 2018-10-19

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Jeanie, Will and Adina are three senior citizens
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connected by a special relationship.
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They view their bond as a shield from the loneliness of aging.
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I first met them at a retirement home in Los Angeles,
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where I had been photographing for three years.
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I saw as they approached the gate one night,
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and felt an immediate connection to them.
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Although I didn't know the details of their love triangle,
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I intuitively felt that I had to find out who they were.
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Questioning a nurse a day later, she said to me,
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"Oh, you're talking about the threesome."
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(Laughter)
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I was intrigued.
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(Laughter)
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The trio set out on a daily adventure to coffee and doughnut shops,
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bus stops and street corners.
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I soon learned that the purpose of these outings was solace
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and a search for meaning.
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The trio sought to combat their alienation
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by literally integrating themselves in public streets.
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Yet, even when arm in arm, no one saw them.
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We often think that as we age, we lose the desires held in our youth.
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Actually, as a teenage photojournalist when I met the trio,
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I saw their behavior as a mirror
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to the fears of exclusion and desires for intimacy
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that I also carried.
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I related to their invisibility,
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which pained me during my childhood
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but has become my greatest asset as an immersive documentarian,
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because I can just fade into my empathy.
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As we walked down the streets of Hollywood,
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in a neighborhood of screenwriters, actors and filmmakers,
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the trio assumed the invisibility that each senior does.
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I would ask myself,
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"How is it that no one else sees these three human beings?
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Why is it that I am the only one who sees them?"
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Years later, as I began to share this work with the public,
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I noticed that people are largely uncomfortable with this story.
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Perhaps it is because the trio doesn't assume conventional notions
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associated with love, romance or partnership.
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They were unseen in public and shunned by their peers.
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They wanted to belong somewhere
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but only seemed to belong with each other.
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I wanted to belong somewhere, too.
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And my camera has been a catalyst for me to belong everywhere.
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But beyond challenging sociocultural norms about the elderly,
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the trio sheds light on fear of remoteness.
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At the end of each day, they return to their respective retirement homes.
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Under the surface of their aloneness,
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there is a desire for community, for their people.
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There was a sense that they were each yearning for their tribe,
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but that comfort comes with compromise,
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because Will cannot commit to one woman.
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Sitting with Jeanie one day in her apartment, she said to me,
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"Sharing Will is a thorn in your side.
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A relationship between a man and a woman is private.
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It is a couple, not a trio."
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My process is to essentially become the people I document
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by spending years with them as an observer-occupant,
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to create a safe space, to then become hidden in plain sight.
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I was about 17 when I met the trio,
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and I shadowed them for four years.
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We actually see, in the breakdown of social development,
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that adolescence and old age look strikingly alike,
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because both are periods of identity confusion.
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I identified with the women.
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But also with Will, who made me aware of the divide in me.
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The schism that we each often have
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about what we crave and the actuality of our situation.
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Before shooting this series,
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I was also in love with two different people who knew about each other,
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being the object over which they fought.
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But I also knew what it was like to be at the base of the triangle,
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like Jeanie or Adina,
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asking myself,
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"Why aren't I enough?"
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I would look through my viewfinder and see three elderly figures,
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and it became impossible to deny that regardless of age,
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we were each in pursuit of filling the proverbial hole through other people.
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Perhaps the discomfort of looking at Jeanie, Will and Adina's story
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is truly a reminder that even at the end of life,
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we may never reach the fantasy we have envisioned for ourselves.
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Thank you for listening.
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(Applause)
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