RELIQUARIES
For my project Reliquaries, I use the typology of the empty frame to examine and consider the sudden transformation of daily life during the pandemic. This series acts as a journal focused on this profound and difficult period of time, filled with loss and uncertainty. The smallest shifts in my routines began to take on immense importance and it became a time to reconsider the rapid changes that impacted our existence almost overnight.
As an artist, my entire photographic practice revolves around the idea of time. This project expands on this subject and explores memory and its place in constructing history as we use the past to understand the future. My use of vintage frames is a nod to how history is shaped by what is remembered, but these empty frames are filled with absence. I describe what’s missing from the frame using my handwriting to describe visual memories that are significant to me. The frame becomes a vestige for imagination, inviting the viewer to create their own invented imagery inspired by the text.
Through this series, I acknowledge the scope of what has been lost during the pandemic. Even the unremarkable minutiae in my life have taken on a new significance, to be considered and remembered as they have become an intrinsic part of my personal narrative.
