In the summer of 2017, four years after the passing of my Father from a prolonged struggle with alcohol, I returned to my parents’ house in an attempt to uncover and understand the reasons for my Father’s addiction. Whilst I had been able to experience some semblance of his existence and life through the memory of my Mother and the few material items that we had managed to retain, it was a curiously large personal assortment of photographs created by my Father which began to captivate me the most. I had been well accustomed to the easily accessible compilation of family albums that resided within the communal spaces of the family home – this personal archive, however, was quite different.
These photographs did not rest in a space that could be easily accessed, nor could they be accidentally stumbled upon. Instead, they had rested concealed and out of reach within the loft, slowly gathering a fine dust over the years since his passing. The collection consisted of 126 rolls of 35mm film within a ring bound folder, over 800 individually printed 3 ½ x 5 ½ inch darkroom photographs contained within 8 separate boxes and 21 boxes of colour positive slides amounting to over 800 individual frames. Approaching this uninterpreted and deeply private archive was a daunting experience. Yet the photographs appeared to offer a tantalising opportunity to vividly build an impression of his life before the family and a chance to find resolution and meaning to his passing.
Through undertaking this process of discovery and navigating the limitations of the photographic archive to communicate moments from the past, I ultimately uncovered a man that was more complicated and intricate than I could have imagined. Yet, he also remained as obscure, ambiguous entirely unknowable as any other. However, over time, rather than locating my Father as the alcoholic, he emerged to me as someone who was deeply engaged with photography, extensively using it as a means of escape or as a way to explore himself and his place in the world. Through my understanding of my Father as a photographer through the archive, the work in Loiner has transformed into and fostered a photographic collaboration that poignantly did not happen whilst he was alive. Readdressing the past through this photographic dialogue has ultimately turned a painful family history into something that has brought love, healing and reconciliation.