During my research I stumbled
across a small section of Rosy Martin’s project: “Acts of Reparation” at the
‘Uncertain States Open Call’ exhibition in 2015. My tutor recommended that I
should look at her work because, as for my ongoing project, her photography
often deals with memory and loss, in particular relating to the deaths of her
parents. I therefore decided to look again at “Acts of Reparation” and to see
how it related to my own work.
For over 30 years Rosy Martin
has, either individually or through collaborations with other artists (including
Jo Spence), developed an original photographic practice, termed Phototherapy,
in which re-enactment is combined with photography to examine role-playing as a
means of exploring and understanding memories. This ‘therapy’ is designed to explore
individuals’ identities and understand and/or control emotions concerned with,
amongst other things, bereavement, grief, loss and reparation.
Although her projects are not
just restricted to phototherapy, most of Martin’s work (and, in particular,
“Acts of Reparation”) strongly reflects this practice. In this project she
dresses in her parents’ clothes and tries to assume their identities, both
physically and emotionally, before photographing herself, sometimes reflected
in a mirror, as she would wish to remember them. In her mother’s case (see, for
example, Image 1) this work is particularly poignant as Martin was her mother’s
carer towards the end of her life when her mother was suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease, an illness that can be both demanding and distressing for
relatives and friends of those affected.
Image 1; Rosy Martin, Photograph from "Acts of Reparation"
These images are designed not
only as personal acts of reparation but also to reach out to the viewer to
address reflective nostalgia and loss. They act as a personal memoir of the
‘good’ parents, perhaps as they would have wished to be remembered, perhaps deflecting
some of the heartbreak associated with illness and bereavement.
At the risk of sounding sexist,
role playing that goes to the extremes of dressing up and portraying somebody
else appears to be restricted to women in the world of photographic art, with
Cindy Sherman and Gillian Wearing springing to mind. This does not devalue the
act in my eyes, but perhaps points to differences in the way that individuals
seek reparation. I would certainly not demean the importance of Phototherapy as
a potential device for many people in successfully dealing with grief and
exploring memory. Also, attempting to use photography as a means of effecting
reparation certainly strikes a chord with me as, after all, is my project not about
reparation?
What value can I gain from
studying Rosy Martin’s work? Firstly, I find her use of mirrors in some of the
photographs, such as Image 1, interesting. Although I have dabbled in the
‘artificial’ use of mirrors in my project this work has not, so far, been
successful. Perhaps a more intimate photograph, connecting me with an image of
my mother, could be a device for exploring some of the events and periods in
our lives that I still need to represent pictorially, provided that the
presentation can provoke a response in the viewer. Secondly, Martin’s use of
visual clues to explore memory and the passage of time is also very important
in my work – even if I’m trying to do this in a very different way.
One final point: taking on the
role of carer enabled Rosy Martin’s mother to stay in her own home, amongst
cherished possessions and memories, until she died. One of my many regrets,
which is expressed in the text for my project, is that because I did not
take on the role of my mother’s carer after I retired (it would have been extremely
difficult but possible for me to do so) my mother had to leave her home and she
died in residential care. My attitude to reparation may differ somewhat from
Rosy Martin’s, but for me some things can never be repaired.
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