Personal Work
The Disconnect: Part 1
The feeling of loneliness in today’s society is a thing. Many people feel it. I do.
What is loneliness? I think it’s a very personal experience. It’s not solitude. It’s being alone. It’s quiet. It’s grief. It’s not productive, and it is boring. It’s a yearning to be with someone and that is embarrassing to admit. It’s a disconnect.
Feeling lonely is embarrassing. And yet how could we possibly feel lonely when we are so connected digitally?
Since my divorce almost 20 years ago, I haven’t re-partnered. I had a child at home and didn’t want or need anyone else in my or our lives. For the last 18 months, my son has lived in Melbourne. I’m not sure when I realised I was lonely, but it manifested in different ways, slowly and almost insidiously. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to live alone. Much of the time I’m quite happy with my solitude. Other times, less so.
At first I felt a level of freedom I hadn’t experienced for 20 years. It was revelatory! But then after a while not having shared experiences with another human being made me realise I was missing something. No one touches me. No one is thinking about me. The air in my home doesn’t resonate with our voices. Meals are boring. I loathe cooking for one.
It’s okay. I do lots of things and I’m relatively happy. I do tend to suck it up and move on most of the time and there are many positives for living alone! Many!!
You do not have to be alone to be lonely.
I am alone because I’m an empty-nester and that is a thing too. Kids grow up, move out and it’s just me left at home. It’s a positive thing to see my child moving off into the world and yet I’m still here at home, sometimes feeling sad. It feels like a redundancy and the loss of my motherhood, even though I will always be a mother, mum. Henry’s mum. Mumsie!
According to Victoria Health “Empty nest syndrome refers to the grief that many parents feel when their children move out of home. This condition is typically more common in women, who are more likely to have had the role of primary carer.”. As a single parent life growing a child is all consuming. Now he’s gone on to good things I am happy and very proud.
This series of self portraits is an absurd fantasy, a disconnect. I portray myself as I am, a single middle-aged woman living alone but also as someone in what looks like a relationship. Familiar domestic scenes of comfortable and uncomfortable silence, unquestioning companionship or a dysfunctional alienation. I feel that even in relationships you can feel ‘unseen’ and feel or out of place.
Is it a reflection of my relationships? Probably! Often the reality of relationships isn’t necessarily what you see in public. Fifteen years ago as a family portrait photographer, I got to see the public view of hundreds of families; happiness, love, connection. However, what happens behind closed doors, is another thing.
Smart phones have made the disconnect is even more disconnected. How many people sit side-by-side on the couch with the TV on looking at their phones? It’s not a criticism, but often a reality. I do it!
So here I am sitting here in my lounge, by myself with my cat on one side and my mobile phone on the other silently screaming into the ether, “I am lonely!”. I admit it, publicly. In a hyper-connected world we now have the right to disconnect, but do we really want to?
The Disconnect: Part2
Much has been written about the disconnect between human beings and nature. Emerging yourself in nature is definitely therapeutic. It can be a cure for many things, including loneliness.
In a world where we are increasingly isolating ourselves and controlling our landscape and environment, it will only to our disadvantage and to the planet’s.
There is much to be said about feeling the earth beneath our feet, and yet in the western world I live in we compartmentalise nature and the natural world. Our gardens are landscaped and manicured and contain many exotic plants.
For my mental health I try to walk in nature, but there is always a barrier; the soles of my feet never touch the soil when walking within the hills or along a track. The only time I am immersed is when I swim in the sea and walk on a beach.
Capitalism and western industrialisation has encouraged us to separate ourselves from the natural world. Indigenous populations care for country and walk amongst it. As a settler in this land I could learn much from doing that.
Dad and Me Selfies
Who knew that Dementia came in so many forms?
Parkinson’s dementia
Vascular dementia
Alzheimer’s dementia
Lewy Body Dementia
Mixed Dementia
Fronto-temporal Dementia
and more…
Sounds fairly innocuous!
You know when you hear people talking about issues, illnesses, accidents, unfortunate circumstances deaths etc but it often doesn’t resonate with you if you’ve never experienced it. You can feel sorry for the people involved but unless you’ve had a similar situation happen to you, you can never truly understand or empathise. I am writing this to trying an make people aware that Dementia is horrible, we are in the middle of it at the moment and it could happen to you or your family.
When my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease seven or eight years ago, we actually felt a small bit of relief, as we thought he was suffering depression. His odd behaviour finally had a name.
For the first few years of his disease, his demeanour didn’t change very much.
Our Dad had Dementia.
Initially, we were told he had Parkinson’s dementia. Then it was Lewy Body dementia, and even vascular dementia has been mentioned. What ever the diagnosis, our Dad and Mum’s husband of 55years, was gone.
He became increasingly immobile, insomniac, agitated, angry, paranoid, delusional, and had hallucinations. He thought his wife, our mum, and us children are strangers that are plotting against him. There is very little dignity in dementia.
He was broken.
Someone who was passionate about the environment, social justice, politics, ended up residing in the world of paranoia and distrust.
His journey with dementia was fast and furious, leaving us grieving on the go. As carers we struggled every day; it was relentless. It has affected my mental health and in turn my business. 2016 wasn’t a good year!
Dementia is a family disease. It takes a WHOLE family to care and manage the disease of ONE person. It is phone calls and messages every day, it is rearranging schedules to cope, it requires action and decisions every day, it’s dressing and personal care, it’s keeping ONE eye on him AT ALL TIMES. It is trying to stay calm and loving under adversity and the person you are doing it for is completely unaware, very ungrateful, unreasonable and uncooperative. I liken it to dealing with a stroppy toddler as you cannot reason with him. The difference between a 2 year old and an Keith/Dad is that you CANNOT console him to make him feel better….but we have each other and we are a team.
guru bung dhaura
Westlake, Yarralumla ACT
guru bung dhaura means stony ground. Colonists call guru bung dhaura Westlake and it is between Yarralumla and Lake Burley Griffin.
These images is a body of work I am creating exploring the 'spaces’ people lived: the original landowners the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people and the native fauna and then the itinerant settler workers that came and lived in temporary huts whilst they built Canberra. It is now empty of any settler structures other than remnants.
I hope to talk and learn from the original peoples about this land and culture and record those stories within the images….
I have used in camera multiple exposures to illustrate those who have lived and gone but also the duality that is guru bung dhaura
Sticks and Stones
These images form part of a work in progress that aims to visually illustrate how words, slurs or insults can leave scars.
I scratched words, slurs and insults I have endured in my lifetime, onto unexposed black and white film. This was done in complete darkness in the darkroom. I then made self portraits using the altered film. Once exposed and processed the words appear randomly across the film and hence my face and body in the resulting portraits.
Much is said of physical violence in relationships and human behaviour and now we know more about coercive control and other forms of subtle violence. Not all the words I remember being called were by an intimate partner. Other relationships included; work colleagues, friends, casual acquaintances and random people.
"Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me...." a saying that is meant to teach resilience. As girls we were told that if a boy was horrible to us that meant that he liked us. Through this warped and manipulative behaviour we succumbed to low self esteem and less power. It is everyday misogyny.
This highly personal work has been a cathartic experience in the act of collecting and remembering the words, often in disbelief, thinking about the context and my role in the relationship at the time. Most if not all, were completely unjustified. Many of the ‘compliments’ I received as a young woman were about my physical appearance. From my teenage years and until my late 30’s, I thought being told I had ‘nice tits’ was a compliment when in fact I now know it is an engendered sexist slur and equates my self worth with my physical appearance.
The insults like bitch, slut and cunt is violence that reinforce traditional feminine norms and stereotypes. It is strategic and they shame victims like myself by accusing me/us of falling short of “normal” beauty standards for women.
Putting these words on my naked person and in the public domain lessens their power over me and I hope they enable other women who have experienced similar insults to talk and share.
