My Mother Tells Me

My Mother Tells Me (2021- ) is an ongoing project that aims to explore the connection between past and present by engaging with notions of childhood, identity and memory. I’m now a mother, at the age my father was when he passed away, and I find I’m clinging onto my memories, urgently attempting to record, re-create and re-tell them. It comes from a place of fear – I want to not be forgotten. I plea with my children to understand some fragments of my childhood, although they are unable to relate to my birthplace, with no photographs to browse and a grandfather they never met. My first-ever photograph was taken at the age of eleven against the brick wall of my primary school. I don’t have a copy of this photograph. My story before then is my own narrative, built on what I think I remember. In order to tell the story, this film brings together archival and reconstructed images. The images I’ve created draw from my everyday life and experiences. They reflect on the tension between my longing for home and my developing sense of belonging in Australia. It is this in-between place that fuels the telling. The story is narrated by my eleven-year-old daughter Ada, and told from her perspective. Through creating this work I feel that I am a step closer to converting what is mine to what is ours.

Destiny, 2021  

digital photograph

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Ada, 2021  

digital photograph  

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Dream time, 2021  

digital photograph  

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Almond Tree, 2021  

digital photograph  

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All Wrapped Up, 2020  

digital photograph  

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