MAPPING MOTHER

2006

Mapping Mother is a contentious body of work for me as it illustrates the differences, similarities and social distances between my mother and I, and documents a time after my father’s sudden passing, when I believe my mother had ceased to care for the physical.

In 1995,12 years after her husband’s death, mother’s house was rebuilt. Even though she was nearly blind, mother managed to have a small version of her old home recreated in a section of the new home using all her old furniture and fittings.

So well did she recreate the old house within the new, at times it has become quite difficult to recollect which version of the house these shots were taken in.The images were gathered in the evenings after long lunches and on annual festivals.

I was moved to record these details as they somehow are, or have been part of me. The wood, plaster and long held ephemera. While I always imagined mother as an energetic and gregarious person, it seems she was in fact, sadly withdrawn and depressed, living within her self-made haven.

This body of work was awarded the 2007 Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award and the 2007 Pat Corrigan Acquisitive Award.