This is a series of 36 photographic self-portraits, which tells my story of recovery from dissociative amnesia caused by complex trauma. The bones of sheep symbolise memory in photographs that reimagine remembering, healing, and recovery.
The Bone Collector is also a handmade artist's photobook, layering 32 photographs with poetic text. The design of the book, including the choice of print technique and presentation, further conceptualise the embodied nature of trauma.
The Travelling Circus (2026)
As some folk say, life is circus and circus is life. Are we all sometimes the clown? How absurd is it to want to fly?
The photobook 'The Travelling Circus' was inspired by trips to the touring circus (Circus Vegas and Circus Berlin) and by a conversation I had with a child once, who didn't have a ticket but really wanted to know what happened inside the big top.
The book is constructed from cardboard, brown paper and parcel tape, and tied with string - a package of circus stories posted from town to town. It has hand-painted covers, pages and tickets. My photographs are on brown kraft paper, held by crown binding made with sheet music for 'Entry of the Gladiators' by Julius Fučík - well known as the clowns' energetic entry music! The book opens out in a way that structurally represents the big top.
This is a series of 36 photographic self-portraits, which tells my story of recovery from dissociative amnesia caused by complex trauma. The bones of sheep symbolise memory in photographs that reimagine remembering, healing, and recovery.
The Bone Collector is also a handmade artist's photobook, layering 32 photographs with poetic text. The design of the book, including the choice of print technique and presentation, further conceptualise the embodied nature of trauma.
The Bone Collector (2026)
The handmade photobook of The Bone Collector adds layers of text to the full series of 32 photographs, and explores the embodied nature of trauma and an emotional excavation 'to the bones' of the past, through printing techniques and bookbinding design elements.
I use hand-made one-off prints which seep through the pages. Photographic prints are tipped in over these prints, and poetic text on vellum lays on top. This visually creates the layers of excavation from amnesia, to the embodied imprint of trauma, to memory and a narrative of recovery. The book layers further symbolism through colour, materiality and construction.
