high gabble

Last November my parents moved to sheltered accommodation near me in Farnham leaving the family home in Chigwell, Essex after 35 years. Two weeks after moving my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and spent several months on a psychiatric ward before having a ‘successful’ mastectomy in February 2008 and then returning to the psychiatric ward. She was discharged at the beginning of this month. She and my father are now beginning to think about selling the family home. I am taking cameras to the house in early June to photograph and film what remains. I am not sure what will emerge from this undertaking but the working title of the work ‘High Gabble’ - courtesy of my dear Auntie Renee now deceased - is a play on the name of the house, ‘High Gable’, and is a pretty accurate reflection on my mother’s highly emotional mood swings throughout my own childhood.

There is much is the media about a deficit of funds to care for the growing elderly population. There is much in the media about a deficit of funds to treat the mentally ill. This work will hopefully engage in a thoughtful way with these debates.