Patchwork (2017-2021) 

"Till death do you part" is a phrase that applies to fewer and fewer marriages these days, which means that more and more parents and children are growing up together in a new family construction - the so-called patchwork- family.

Constantly confronted with a family history in which she was not involved from the beginning, Gjaltema has been trying to find her way within her new family in Germany as a stepmother since 2012. When she became a mother in 2013, her relationship with her stepdaughters and husband changed again and new story was being written parallel to the original family history.

For her collages about the ongoing, subliminal tensions within such a family and their changing identities, Gjaltema uses the Polaroid pictures taken of her family members and their surroundings. She enlarged them, cuts out the figures, leaving a frame, to reassemble them into new portraits - just as the identities within a patchwork family constantly shift and change. The abstract forms, expressive colors and cut marks of the paper emphases how different views come together and try to form a new, strong entity.

The Series was selected by Diane Darfour ( director of LE BAL) for the Guestroom of Der Greif, nominated for the Photogrvphy Grant 2017 and for the Hellerau Photography Award 2018. It was published in F-Stop Magazine in 2018 and exhibited at Hellerau Photofestival and the show ‘Family of no man’ at Recontres d’Arles