An Ecology of Grief

2024

Digital photographs and black and white film photographs on matte paper

An Ecology of Grief is an aesthetic exploration of grief following the death of my grandmother. The photographs aim to challenge the notion that the grief manifests through a series of sequential stages, characterised by socially constructed temporal parameters. The work aims to validate non-conventional ways of enduring grief by opening up and reclaiming a grieving space that exists outside of time-bound, socially prescribed processes of mourning. Destabilising normative approaches to grieving, the series ‘queers’ grief by aligning with posthuman interpretations of death and dying. The work assumes the position that death allows the deceased to abandon their status as embodied subjects and become embedded within nature; in this way, the dead are constantly present in the here and now. Framing the death of my grandmother in this way led my grief to manifest in unexpected ways, reiterating the need for alternative mourning spaces that destabilise Western, pathologised grieving frameworks marked by various stages of distress. By connecting elements of black-and-white archival photographs with recently captured film photographs, I visually represent the merging of my grandmother’s body and life force with the environment. While she no longer exists as a corporeal being, she remains present in all that lives, breathes and grows. By punctuating the series with coloured photographs depicting myself in contact with the environment, I reclaim the act of mourning by creating a space where I am able to sit with my grief and embrace the ways in which death has transformed my relationship with my grandmother.