Offering

Offering is a series of six hand-altered photographs of my mother in her prayer garment, worn backward. A response to caregiving, grief, and a history of illness that keeps returning.

Offering is a series of six hand-altered photographs of my mother in her prayer garment, worn backward, made in Amman, Jordan between 2023 and 2025. The work is a response to caregiving and the grief of watching a parent become vulnerable, something I had already lived in my own body, and before that, watched my father.

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We made the pictures together. She wore her prayer garment backward. She held what I brought into the room and I photographed her.

I was alone with the prints for a long time.

Yellow came first. The body makes decisions before the mind arrives. I drew over the surface until something settled, then I photographed that too. Then I printed it. Framed it in white.

Stood back.

Hasra, حسرة. It returns. It already knows your house, your light, the particular way you stand when you don't know what else to do.

I have been here before. My father was the first time.

The grief in this work is mine.