I decided to create two pieces as a starting point for my Photography 3 project work. I wanted to produce some work where the character of a real person comes to the fore. In this, I am partly influenced by OCA student Morris Gallagher who produced a very moving work, “A Grief Observed” about the loss of his daughter so much of which rang true for me with many shared experiences.
https://morris-gallagher.format.com/a-grief-observed
Morris speaks of looking back at previous works we produce of someone we know and love which bring back memories. He speaks to me of not regretting his work at that time and talks interestingly of his finished work creating a sense of “poetic ambiguity, i.e., approaching things from an oblique but suggestive angle”.
Part 1 of my two pieces of work is a fast slideshow of the images I collected from Rebecca’s iPhone after she died. The series consists of screenshots, photographs and artworks mostly captured or created by Rebecca sometimes but also sometimes pictures there taken by others including by me. A fast sequence because I don’t want the viewer to concentrate on any one image over another but instead wanted to give the impression of the passage of time. Also fast, because imagine a 17-year-old who knows they are dying and is trying to cram in as much as possible when their treatment and their pain management allows. The sequence shows deterioration in Rebecca, for example her weight increasing towards the end as clinicians tried steroids to help control her pain. For me this is a tough watch, putting all of that period into just 4 minutes 20 seconds.
Part 2 is the same period but from a different perspective. This piece is conceived as a slow work. I have taken time to consider which images to show and how to display them and placed the images with text and with blank space to create a sense of reflection which allows viewer to step through this collection at their own pace, stopping to read my words. This is a slow work designed with time to think. With that increase in time, the sense of pain and loss can increase as we have more time to dwell.
My work is contained within a book saved in PDF format and available in the link below.
Part 2 – A Retrospective on my Daughter Rebecca
These photographs were taken by me as I tried to make sense of her diagnosis, the progression of her illness and her death through my work. I never intended showing these images to anyone but was encouraged by the works of Morris and other artists who have dealt with loss such as Angelo Merendino and the haunting work by Jo Spence in her book, Jo Spence: The Final Project. It is interesting to me looking back how few of these images I appear in. Almost as though I was missing from these events.
There are parts of Rebecca’s story which I didn’t record. Whether due to physical weariness or being shattered emotionally am not sure. I reached a point after she died that time itself lost meaning for me and I felt I had nothing to offer and the camera stayed in the bag. I questioned the value of my work and in some ways developed a hatred of these pieces and didn’t want to look at it. I questioned my own worth as an artist and as a person. There are parts of her story which I suspect would have made her sad and most likely more which would have made her smile. Things such as after her death giving away Christmas presents bought for her and finding Christmas presents she had bought for us. Even now Christmas has little meaning in our house. Disposing of her clothes and so many aspects of her life, so many of the small things such as seeing a favourite treat and thinking you will get it for her and then remembering that she is gone. Watching her friends grow up and travel and have children and the feeling of jealousy and at same time shame for feeling jealous. Rebecca left us a memory box. But six years since she died and neither my wife nor I have had the courage or desire to open it. To end this description, am sure you can agree, she had a great smile.
Am I strange or odd? I been in and out of hospitals for a long time going back and forth to clinics, accident and emergency, oncology wards and much more. It been part of our lives as a family now for 16 years or so. You might imagine that might mean I have developed a thick skin to be able to function in such circumstances. In a way yes, but the emotion is never far away. This has been a difficult 2-part exercise that I undertook. Am I strange or odd? Maybe, but I feel normal. I have just had to deal with what been thrown my way. It has become a new normal. This emotional side is what I want to try and tackle next and question how I can find a way to put this sense back into medical images and notes.
To give you an example of what I mean about my kind of normal, and am aware that this might shock, here is a quick couple of photographs I took just a couple of days ago of my son after yet another operation. It is the clash between the human side of such a scar and how these viewed from the medical side which interests me in this project. I should add that although I took these pictures, I had no desire to start another photographic diary. Having done this for Rebecca, I never felt any need to do another.
This idea of speed that I mentioned in relation to parts 1 and 2 of these works where one illustrates fast time and one slower, more considered time has an echo in my experiences of the past few weeks. My son, Robbie has had two operations (his second one is taking place as I write these reflections – Thursday 3rd March). When I speak of speed in relation to the passage of time in my 2 works, consider the speed at which time passes if I am waiting on an operation to be completed or am waiting to hear news. That is true slow time. A third party is unable to do anything other than wait. I imagine much of period of waiting if I was person in operating theatre that I would be unconscious so hardly aware of the passage of time. Or if I was the neurosurgeon, the time would most likely pass very quickly and he or she is very busy. I studied physics at college many years ago and the mathematical certainties of time set against the human perception of the passage of time feel very different. Again, this idea seems another example of an idea I have come across before, that of the apparent clash between science and art and also science and real human experience of life.
These starting works have proved very useful to me. I have thought about the passage of time, ideas of the self from Rebecca and Robbie’s perspective and from my own perspective and also for an audience who might look at this work and have no knowledge of any of the people involved. I have thought about the structures seen by medical clinicians and them looking beyond the person. I watched the staff over past three weeks taking readings and measurements, checking times and filling in charts and taking notes. Coming into a room or to a bedside to complete their task then moving on. That process is in itself also about time. I have thought about this 2-part work passing a single message but from different perspectives. Is there then something here for me to consider about the medical view of the self as epitomised by medical scans and the view of the self as I see myself? Maybe having such a juxtaposition that putting these different ideas into the same space on the same image might be challenging conceptually with potential that I could muddle or pollute my meaning. Lots to think about but I do feel that this been a positive and worthwhile experience.