a house, a tree and a well

As a child, I often wondered what my life would have been like if I had been born somewhere else, in another family, in another world.

Years later, I returned to Gotești, the village where my father was born, searching for fragments of that imagined life.

Moldova, a country still navigating its post-Soviet identity, exists in a quiet tension—between past and future, tradition and change, faith and disillusionment. A Moldovan belief says that to live a fulfilled life, one must build a house, plant a tree, and dig a well. But what happens when people leave before they can do any of these things? When villages empty, languages fade, and the promise of stability feels just out of reach?

In Gotești, time seems to stand still. The family, an almost sacred ideal, is both a foundation and a fragile dream. Through my lens, I followed those who stayed—capturing childhoods shaped by absence and resilience, by deep-rooted traditions and quiet uncertainties.

This work is not just about Moldova. It is about the invisible forces that shape us all—the places we come from, the people we long for, and the things that hold us together when so much is pulling us apart.

And yet, despite—or perhaps because of—social, political, and economic hardships, the people of Gotești have never let go of one thing: the dream of family as a unifying force.