Everything here is fine only I fell out of a tree the first hour I was here and I also cut my thumb by Jennifer Drabbe

A story about intimacy and connection through six generations of women from one family, that brings to life how generations change but that our behaviour and our needs do not.

“Knowing if I tell you everything everything will be all right,” my eighteen-year-old grandmother writes in a letter to her mother in 1944. The war is in full swing and I read that she has an independent character, that she is poetic, dramatic, messy even but also madly in love. She is also pregnant and unmarried. A complete correspondence follows between my grandmother, her mother and her grandmother. With the letters in my possession I fall headfirst into my young grandmother’s world, a world which is surprisingly recognizable. The way the women communicate with each other feels familiar. I could have written them too, with my mother and daughters. What follows is an exploration into six generations of women in my family. I literally zoom in on letters and images of all the generations, I photograph, I unravel and cut things up until I find what I was looking for: connection and belonging.

All images and details are taken by me, from photos and other archival material shot between 1906-2024 and involve six generations of women in my family.

All texts are excerpts I distilled from existing correspondence written between six generations of mothers and daughters and grandmothers in my family in the period 1944-2024.

As a photographer, and previously as a theatre director, I have a love for the daily things which make us so human: namely the playful and tender aspects of our behaviour. 

Trust, connection and belonging are the most important themes in my work and my subjects are often people closest to me. I explore our individuality and that what binds us. Everything here is fine only I fell out of a tree the first hour I was here and I also cut my thumb is my second book.