I’ve grown up recalling many stories of my Grandpa and the family across the pond. Ever since I can remember my Grandma would paint scenes in my mind of the place she called the ‘Land of Enchantment’, as I pleaded with her to recite another memory of family treasured dinners and daytrips. As a child, I remember family phone calls abroad on special occasions, only to recognise the thick American accent amongst a handful of names sewn throughout my Grandma’s tales. “When you’re all grown up, I’ll take you there and you can make your own stories. One day you will meet all of Grandpa’s wonderful family for yourself, how about that?”
The year 2020 marked the 25th anniversary of the passing of my Grandpa Ian, a few months after my first visit to New Mexico, to meet and stay with my paternal relatives.
‘Ian would have loved you’ represents a personal photographic odyssey connecting family bloodline and the notions of storytelling through the presence of my Grandpa. The photographs represent my interactions with surrounding environments, connecting walks of generations past, present and future; being guided by a subconsciousness and a history of shared experiences. The use of the family album allows for a reminiscence of this collective memory, in which faith, grief and family values are touched upon through the subtle appearance of personalities that I’ve grown to know and love over the past year. It was clear both my grandparents had an enchantment with the landscape and the people of New Mexico, leaving a lasting infatuation that travelled through my family living in England. Each scene embodies this notion of my Grandpa’s presence, resonating through my own experiences, in a collection of associated memories and family history.
