Subject
Grandad’s (broken) pocket watch.
Time, on many occasions has triggered episodes of depression in my life; worrying about the uncertain future, dwelling on the distant past and therefore not existing in the present.
I hadn’t realised that it was a year ago today since my grandfather passed away. His death came at a time when I was beginning to reconnect with my paternal family, which meant it was much more difficult to deal with and process.
These photographs are part of a wider, ongoing series: Sometimes A Silence Will Cut Through Sounds, which responds to grief and a family history of mental health problems.
Subject
This image I took with my camera at home right before travelling to Rome in 2018.
The cross is mine and the blurry picture baby me but the red Pompeii and underneath Naples postcard were my grandad's that he got from travelling with the navy and gave to me because I have a real passion for history (particularly English and Italian). I loved Rome and the city was beautiful but I really hope to go to Pompeii and Florence as my next stops!
Subject
I took this during the first Photoworks workshop on heirlooms; this image includes objects that are important to my identity and that I think would make significant heirlooms to future generations. There is also a hint at my black lives matter poster in the reflection on the guitar which is another thing that needs to not be forgotten about.
Subject
The main connection to his heritage my Granddad shared with me was the food of his home country of Guyana. He was poor at sharing recipes, cooking too quickly and just getting on with it or sneaking in secret ingredients. A few years after he died, my mum and I both really specifically fancied something in the style of "jungle food", as he called it, which involves fried plantain, dumplings, coconut-y sauce and often fresh fish. This image shows my mum's hands, which I share, as she peels the tough skin of the plantain, I love all the softened points and tips and the proximity we feel looking at it.
Subject
My family does not have many heirlooms, however we do grapple with a legacy of secrets and generational histories that are passed down, often remaining unspoken and unnamed. This image, for me, represents a questioning of the heirlooms that my family holds, and those that have been discarded. The image is of a bunch of fresh flowers which were discarded in a graveyard I visited, and it speaks to ideas of loss, of rejection, and most crucially for me, it is filled with so many unanswerable questions. Flowers are nostalgic, symbolic and often a placeholder for remembrance and memorialisation. I enjoy the blurriness of the image, where the flowers are behind a layer of plastic that changes their colour and the petals become indistinct shapes that could be anything.
Subject
From my project 'The women who came before me' which explores the relationships I have held with the women in my family history. What is important about all of the women in my family is that either directly or indirectly, their words, actions and appearances have helped shape who I am. To illustrate this influence, I have archived and created mixed-media installations of family photos by pairing the images with fabrics (dupattas) hand-picked and worn by my mother.
Subject
This image comes from a larger body of work that explores my family's Jewish heritage. The necklace in the photograph belonged to my Great Grandmother (Elly). On the chain, there are two pendants and one ring. The heart pendant is from her parent's wedding. At the end of a Jewish wedding, it is tradition to break a glass or piece of china, to represent the fragility of life and the destruction of the temples. The china in the centre of the heart is from their breaking of the glass, on the return side has their wedding date and names. The circular pendant was a gift for her Bat Mitzvah, on the reverse it says "03.XII.1924 von Deinen Eltern" which translates to 03.XII.1924 from your elders/parents. This became the title of the work. The ring is from her second marriage (once she had arrived in the UK) to the 'presumed' father of my grandfather-- another discovery which led to more questions! The choice to photograph the necklace on a hand mannequin comes from a story Elly told my grandmother about a close encounter she had with the Gestapo before she fled Vienna leaving her parents behind, never to see them again.
Subject
Grandad’s (broken) pocket watch.
Time, on many occasions has triggered episodes of depression in my life; worrying about the uncertain future, dwelling on the distant past and therefore not existing in the present.
I hadn’t realised that it was a year ago today since my grandfather passed away. His death came at a time when I was beginning to reconnect with my paternal family, which meant it was much more difficult to deal with and process.
These photographs are part of a wider, ongoing series: Sometimes A Silence Will Cut Through Sounds, which responds to grief and a family history of mental health problems.