Jim Mortram is a carer for his
mother, who suffers from chronic epilepsy. His upbringing and his role as a
carer based, as he says, “on the fringes of society”, has required patience,
empathy and understanding. He has used these qualities within his community in
East Anglia to gain the trust of and to establish relationships with a number
of people who might be regarded as social outcasts and to document their lives,
both through the medium of photography and through the use of the written word.
Unlike so many people he is obviously a great listener and allows his subjects,
who would otherwise be unable to speak for themselves, to tell their ongoing
life stories in their own words. The results take the form of detailed picture
stories which are published on his web site (http://smalltowninertia.co.uk/).
My tutor alerted me to Mortram’s
work because he rightly thought that it was very relevant to my own project
work and to my relationship with my mother. There is a stark contrast between
Mortram’s acute social awareness, patience and understanding of his subjects
and my own lack of understanding as a former long distance, (very) part time carer.
However, his description of his subjects and their alienation from society does
remind me of the struggle that my mother faced in her later years, although I
concede and hope that she was offered and received far more help from family
and social services than Mortram’s subjects get – although they do not have to
cope with clinical depression. Mum was never allowed to slip off the edge of
society, whereas many others do: these are the people whose lives Mortram chronicles.
How relevant to my work is
Mortram’s photography? Technically, his output is variable although he probably
had to contend with some difficult lighting conditions for the many indoor
shots. Some of his best work is very atmospheric (see image 1 below), but what
is most impressive is the way that his photographic portraits evoke emotion and empathy as
they bring his characters to life. It is far too late for me to portray my
mother in her final years, but if I had chosen to do so when she was alive I
would have learnt much from Mortram’s work.
What really stands out in ‘Small
Town Inertia’ is the combination of the images, Mortram’s own succinct
commentary on the status of his subjects and the somewhat lengthier, but
fascinating utterances of the subjects. I was particularly moved and impressed
by his account of the life of a gentleman called David.
David
Image 1: David (Jim
Mortram)
David was blinded in adult life
as the result of a freak accident. He lived with his mother, Eugene, whose
health was deteriorating when Mortram got to know David. Eugene passed away and
David was left to cope for himself, without friends or family. Mortram was at
the hospital with David when he said goodbye to his mother for the last time
(Image 1) and documented David’s life in the months that followed her death
(Images 2 and 3). The account, often given in David’s own words, brought tears
to my eyes. Unfortunately there are many other Davids living all over the
country, to whom life has given a very poor deal, who are totally forgotten and
don’t have a chance to communicate with society. Jim Mortram’s work reminds us
of this and pricks at our consciences: could we do more as individuals or as
part of society to avoid letting the Davids of this world ‘slip through the net’?
Image 2: David says
goodbye to his mother for the last time (Jim Mortram)
Image 3: David (Jim
Mortram)
Here is David speaking in a profound
manner about the unjustness of the way he is sometimes treated:
“When I was a boy, I had some chickens and sometimes you’ll get some and
they’ll start pecking at one bird, and it seems like once one gets a bit of
blood, a feather or two gone from a hen and they get to the blood of the bird,
they all jump in, pecking at it, attacking this one hen and the only way to
stop them was by putting some tar on the hens feathers and then when this gang
of birds would attack, then they would get this tar in their beaks and not be
able to spit it out, and they don’t like the taste, so they stop.”
“That blood lust, that mentality, seems to me to be the way people can
be. I think of that a lot, especially when I get trouble in town, we are like
chickens in a run and when one has a go the rest join in, jumping on the same
one. It’s exactly the same thing, isn’t it, except instead of birds doing it to
one, it’s people doing it. We really are no different. We are no better, are
we?”
“The thing is, you can stop the birds doing it, but people, I don’t know
if there is a way to stop people behaving in this way. You’d think the
deterrent would be guilt and shame, for acting in such a fashion, but no,
people don’t seem to have those feelings any more, they just do as they want,
well, some people have feelings of guilt but, they are never the ones that have
a go or become a bully.”
“That’s how I honestly feel about it. When the poor blame the poor, it’s
the gang of chickens, singling out the weak ones, and trying to peck them to
death, when they should all be against the farmer, for it’s he that’ll be
cutting their heads off.”
Final Thoughts
Jim Mortram is rightly critical of the lack of government funding and
support for people on the edge of society, such as Tilney1, another of his
subjects who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. These picture stories are powerful
and moving accounts of lives lived on the fringes of or outside society, which
are now receiving a wide audience through Mortram’s efforts (although it should
be much wider than it is). Some of the work has been published in book form (by
Café Royal Books) although I have, as yet, been unable to get my hands on any
of them. Nevertheless the web site gives an excellent, detailed account of his
current work, which will be a valuable source of ideas for my own work.
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