Fragmented Memories

In my earliest years, my parents lived and worked overseas. It was in Bahrain that they met and where I was born. During the nine years that followed, I lived in France, Libya, Tehran, New Orleans, Houston, Nigeria, London and Derbyshire. Each relocation took place within a year or so of the other.

As my mother and father transitioned from one country to the next, establishing and dismantling these temporary homes became a recurring practice. Among their belongings were often souvenirs they acquired when living in each place.

Examining the heirlooms they left, with all the memories, cultural associations, and references accompanying a cathartic investigation, has led to new associations for me about my own peripatetic early years.

More recently, I sadly had to sell my mother's house when she moved into dementia care (my father having died in 1974). Packing up my parents' life into boxes for the last time was challenging and meant choosing what to remember and what, perhaps, to forget.

My visual explorations involve staged portraiture, gel printing, and documenting archival Polaroids, photographs, and Kodachrome slides. The photographs are made against a backdrop of cardboard boxes and packaging materials, symbolising the containment of objects, the capacity for memory, and the surface details of meaningful family possessions, stories, and locations. In addition, I've crafted a life-size cardboard sculpture that represents layers of memories in the form of a beloved side table.