My Stringbean, My Woman

"Oh, little girl, my stringbean, how do you grow?

You grow this way.

You are too many to eat."

- Little Girl My String Bean My Lovely Woman by Ann Sexton.

'My Stringbean, My Woman' is a photographic exploration of family dynamics, particularly the one between a mother and her daughters. By recreating moments from my life as a young girl, this project deals with ideas of fragmented cultural identities, as well as the tenderness and pain of the in-between; the teenager that has not yet blossomed, the mother-daughter connection, the discord of a marriage.

After undergoing Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing therapy, (according to the 2013 World Health Organization practice guideline, "this therapy [EMDR] is based on the idea that negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours are the result of unprocessed memories"), I endeavoured to understand the feeling of my childhood that had previously troubled me, thus this project was born. Each photograph is a reimagining of a processed memory, a feeling, a half remembered recollection.

My Stringbean, My Woman is an elegy to anyone that finds themselves wanting to rewrite their past.

Thank you very much for your consideration.