emily and other creatures
Emily and Other Creatures is an ongoing photographic project of more than thirty images about my sister Emily (which includes family members). The work as a whole was started as a portrait project but it has become fictionalised over time.
I have drawn imaginary elements over some photographs which represent memories and thoughts, and also inadvertently romanticise her struggles with schizophrenia. In this way, the creatures also represent psychosis, otherworldliness and hint at the brutality of a serious mental health condition.
As documentary photographs, or as a record of any truth, the images fail. Ultimately, the work as a whole is a fiction - a product of her daily life, her (at times) artificial response to the camera and the 'scars' I have drawn over the surface of some images..