Moments, Memory and Mortality
Statement of Intent
Moments, Memory and Mortality is a series of images depicting the journey through bereavement. In 2020, at the start of the Covid lockdown, I lost my wife after a long fight with cancer. As a coping mechanism I started walking and taking photographs in the countryside around where I lived. Hippocrates declared that walking is the best medicine more than 2,000 years ago and more recently the Japanese art of shinrin-yoku or ‘forest bathing’ has been shown to have physiological benefits and that time spent immersed in nature is good for us (Miyazaki, 2021). Taking my camera in my hands made me consciously slow everything down and really observe my surroundings as if seeing them for the first time.
I started revisiting these places through walks or derives and was reminded of Barthes (2000) words of every photograph being a chilling reminder of human mortality. Through my photographs I have captured the feeling of time passing and impressions of the memory of having been there before.
My images depict the fluctuating, often unsettling journey, while following the long path ahead into the unknown. The metaphorical journey follows a route into the ‘Transitional Space’, which exists between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds and where primary creativity, or illusion exists (Winnicott, 1971). This reconnected and revitalised my inner world to restore tranquillity and regain equilibrium.
Sometimes showing calmness and serenity, other times capricious and unsettled, the journey follows a route through feelings and emotions such as confusion, loss, grief, acceptance, and hope as it oscillates towards regeneration and the reconstruction of life after bereavement. Burgeoning equanimity heralds a new equilibrium which is formed as the inner and outer worlds are reconnected.
I started revisiting these places through walks or derives and was reminded of Barthes (2000) words of every photograph being a chilling reminder of human mortality. Through my photographs I have captured the feeling of time passing and impressions of the memory of having been there before.
My images depict the fluctuating, often unsettling journey, while following the long path ahead into the unknown. The metaphorical journey follows a route into the ‘Transitional Space’, which exists between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds and where primary creativity, or illusion exists (Winnicott, 1971). This reconnected and revitalised my inner world to restore tranquillity and regain equilibrium.
Sometimes showing calmness and serenity, other times capricious and unsettled, the journey follows a route through feelings and emotions such as confusion, loss, grief, acceptance, and hope as it oscillates towards regeneration and the reconstruction of life after bereavement. Burgeoning equanimity heralds a new equilibrium which is formed as the inner and outer worlds are reconnected.
List of references:
Barthes, R. 2000. Camera lucida : reflections on photography. London: Vintage Books.
Miyazaki, Y., 2021. Walking in the woods. Aster.
Praglin, Laura (2006) "The Nature of the "In-Between" in D.W. Winnicott's Concept of Transitional Space and in Martin Buber's das Zwischenmenschliche," UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 6.
Barthes, R. 2000. Camera lucida : reflections on photography. London: Vintage Books.
Miyazaki, Y., 2021. Walking in the woods. Aster.
Praglin, Laura (2006) "The Nature of the "In-Between" in D.W. Winnicott's Concept of Transitional Space and in Martin Buber's das Zwischenmenschliche," UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 6.