Something lost, Something familiar

Something lost, something familiar​ is the first volume of an ongoing project, in which Hayleigh Longman traces the edges of her relationship with her mother. Longman began photographing her mother after moving back home and facing some personal hurdles with her parents’ divorce and the surroundings of her mother’s new home. In ​Something lost, something familiar​, the ebbs and flows of their relationship are connected with a tree in the back garden, which Longman’s mother routinely cuts back to stop it from blocking the sunlight. Longman relates this intervention with nature to a feeling of only being able to get so far with her mother, before getting lost again. With the garden as their stage, mother and daughter are enmeshed in acts of mirroring and concealment, working through the maintenance of roots and growing distance that pulls together, and apart, their bond.