Title: Reflections of a postman’s daughter
Medium: Two channel data projection video installation, bandages, clay, thread, and two headphones.
Year: 2000, digital transfer 2009.
This immersive installation is a multilayered self portrait. It was originally created in 2000, where for the first time I actively explored a specific period of my formative years, ages 4-7.
Within this period of time I experienced the separation from my birthmother, living in a children’s institution Marymead, (which then was run by Franciscan Nuns) and the transition into long term foster care.
Originally, I recorded the interviews of 4 women who were greatly responsible in shaping the course of my life, my first social worker Michelle Harris, one of my house Mothers from Marymead Miss Olive, my long term Foster Mother Jackie Lallemand and my second social worker Sue Mickelbourgh.
For this installation, I have used two of the interviews. These are projected onto the clayed bandages at 90 degrees, facing each other, so it visually reads that I’m having a conversation with myself, however when wearing the head phones it is revealed that I’m conversing with these women, 3 of whom I haven’t seen in twenty years.
This artwork lends itself to two layers of engagement, firstly the “face” value, the masks of enquiry. And secondly there are the stories, the building of memory, identity and placement. These stories about my childhood reflect the formal and casual relationships and hint at the interviewee’s values, memories and perspectives of my child self.