Exhibition

“In the last years of his life, my grandfather could never remember where I was in the world. After I left home at 18, he developed dementia and could no longer keep track of what country or city I had gone to. As a result, each time I called him, he’d open with the same line: “Where are you calling from tonight?” My answers were always changing, but no matter where I was, he tried to piece together an image of it using his increasingly fractured memory of past travels, things he’d read in the paper, or images he saw on the news, descriptions of which I was always happy to hear, no matter how far off they were.

After his death, I conceptualized this project, which pieces together photos and collages to serve as visual answers to the question “Where are you calling from tonight?” These answers are meant to depict not only physical locations, but the places we go in our minds through dreams, memories, and mourning.

Each of the photos in this series represents some memory of my grandfather’s death as it relates to my own life. Some were taken while my grandfather was actively dying and I was thousands of miles away. Some were taken the day after he died, which happened to be Halloween. Some were taken on a road trip to spread his ashes in his hometown. And some simply remind me of him for reasons I can’t explain.”

This exhibition was produced by myself and hosted by Hen’s Teeth Studio in Dublin. The exhibition was the subject of a two-page spread in Totally Dublin written by Kerry Mahony. An accompanying zine of the works featured in this project was created in partnership with designer Jean Lee. This zine is for sale at The Library Project in Dublin.