Tucked into the Bible that accompanied him in death, the reverse side of a scrap paper hymn read in biro: “The Things You Know Make You Go”. My final University project is a handmade photobook which explores the life of my Great-Grandfather Roy, who died a year before I was born. His presence profoundly impacted those around him, spoken of so often that he became almost folkloric to me as the only one in the family who had not met him.
Through a pairing of my father’s carbon-copied eulogy (September 2001) and elegiac photography (shot on 35mm film that expired the month/year of Roy’s passing), I attempt to understand and configure Roy’s diasporic identity as a result of moving from Jamaica to the UK during Windrush. Documenting moments of disconnection, longing, and resonance in places he once inhabited, the work reflects on grief, memory, and the intergenerational transmission of legacy.
The publication moves away from fixed archival aesthetics and towards a form that is shaped similarly to that of the experience of grief – something that is nonlinear, fragmented, meditative. It challenges dominant archival practices by asking: What is the historical and social value of ‘preserving’ memory? The conventional archive assumes preservation is about accuracy and stability, but memory is inherently unstable. By designing with this instability in mind, through interplay of image, text, and materiality, I offer an alternative archival model that acknowledges loss, absence, and the universal act of remembering.