At the same time as I was coming to terms with my father’s dementia diagnosis, my mother presented me with a box of items she’d saved from my childhood. An eclectic mix of old birthday cards, school reports, letters from pen-pals and other memorabilia. Hidden in that box were four diaries that I had kept during my teenage years, but of which I had no recollection.

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This discovery, coinciding as it did with my father’s own struggles with memory, highlighted for me the elusive, fleeting nature of what we remember. It made me acutely aware of how fragmented my own memories have become over time, almost like finding pieces of a jigsaw puzzle but not knowing exactly where they fit.

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Some of my memories are indistinct, and I find myself mentally squinting to bring them into focus. Others I can see clearly in my mind, yet the wider context of the event or location evades me. This series is a visual representation of how I feel coming across these hazy snippets of my past and finding a way to process them within the broader context of my life, forty years on.

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