dearly departed

BW silver gelatin print, Fibre based, 2019

Against the plastered wall of a cloakroom closet, crooked necked coat hangers hang oddly balanced, off the x bar of another, wooden set of sloped shoulders. This makeshift holding area proffering, a curious mirror reflecting the funeral mourners communed unseen in an adjacent room.

cheese, pickle, soft booze and drinks, stories shared between the mourners and hangers on. a room divided, one to the left, a small group to the right, with the dearly departed, mute but omnipresent. all, wrapped in threads of communication, until it is time to rise, collect one’s coat and move along.

a carte-de-visite from the studio of William Sylvester Laroche, a royal photographer, working out of llandudno, Cymru (north Wales) circa 1872. Discovered amongst a carton box, filled with a multitude of miscellaneous north American postcards. The rummage stock housed in a low ceilinged thrift shop, Albuquerque, new Mexico, 2010.

What connects these two disparate photographs?

a conversation with time and migration, the temporal positioning of bodies & objects. photography as channel speaking momentarily of encounter.