Senior Love Triangle
Featuring: Isadora Kosofsky
Presented By
The Los Angeles Times
Jeanie, age 81, Will, 84, and Adina, 90, are bound by their relationship. Senior Love Triangle is a long-term photo documentary that shadows three aged individuals in a romantic conflict.
They view their connection as a shield from loneliness. In describing their bond Will shares: “We live above the law – not outside the law, but above the law. We are not outlaws.”
In his late 70s, Will moved into a retirement home where he met Adina. Eventually they formed a relationship and Will moved into Adina’s apartment. After being kicked out of the retirement home for violating the terms of his lease, Will moved into another facility where he met Jeanie.
Not wanting to break off his relationship with Adina after falling in love with Jeanie, Will opted to continue maintaining his bond with both women. “To share Will is a thorn in your side. A relationship between a man and a woman is private. It is a couple, not a trio.” Jeanie confides.
Through their relationship, Jean, Will, and Adina challenge socio-cultural beliefs about the elderly. Jeanie, reflecting on her life confides, “I do not wish to assume all the garments of maturity.”
For these individuals, aging is paradoxically a form of both loss and liberation. Attempting to find solace within themselves, they seek escape with each other.
ARTIST BIO
Isadora Kosofsky (b. 1993, USA) is an award-winning documentary photographer based in Los Angeles. She began photographing at the age of 14, documenting individuals in hospice care. She takes an immersive approach to storytelling, spending months and years embedded in the lives of the people she shadows. Her method is to become a part of the group she is documenting, to study communities as an occupant rather than a visitor.
Isadora has contributed to the The New York Times, TIME, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Stern, Le Monde, GEO Germany, Paris Match, The Times (UK), and many others.
She is the recipient of the 2012 Inge Morath Award from the Magnum Foundation for her multi-series work on the aged. She was nominated for a 2016 Lead Award (German Pulitzer) for Senior Love Triangle. She is a recipient of a 2018 grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting for her ongoing work on girl survivors of complex trauma. As a TED Fellow, Isadora is part of a network of 450 global change makers and gave a talk on documentary photography at TED 2018 in Vancouver.