The Lost Father
Digital Photography, Portrait, Mixed technique, 50x30cm
Opening your eyes, you rely on your memory every day to tell you who you are, what you do and why you exist. These fundamental questions form our being.
What then happens, when someone suffers from a type of Dementia, Alzheimer's or Frontal Lobe Syndrome? Dementia is more common globally than ever before in history. In my work I look at my own father, who sometimes remembers my name and sometimes wonders who this stranger is, who sits beside him. I offer a chance to view this man as I have seen him all my life, a fragile human being, who has lost his memory.
These photos capture him in St Nicholas Hospital, where once he received electric shock therapy in the 1960s. The building has changed, yet the old wards are visible with a disused mattress behind the window of a door. This history will never leave the place, nor remove its impact from those it affected.
The last image of an old sitar and drum depicts the loss of memory, of even the pleasures of music and the cultural background that he once had. The sea shore represents the sea he would have traveled across in migration, yet when his memory loss began.
What then happens, when someone suffers from a type of Dementia, Alzheimer's or Frontal Lobe Syndrome? Dementia is more common globally than ever before in history. In my work I look at my own father, who sometimes remembers my name and sometimes wonders who this stranger is, who sits beside him. I offer a chance to view this man as I have seen him all my life, a fragile human being, who has lost his memory.
These photos capture him in St Nicholas Hospital, where once he received electric shock therapy in the 1960s. The building has changed, yet the old wards are visible with a disused mattress behind the window of a door. This history will never leave the place, nor remove its impact from those it affected.
The last image of an old sitar and drum depicts the loss of memory, of even the pleasures of music and the cultural background that he once had. The sea shore represents the sea he would have traveled across in migration, yet when his memory loss began.
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