THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT DEATH: REFLECTIONS ON MOURNING /
In 2018, my partner Rylee’s mother passed away. During the final months of her life, we made as many visits as we could to her northern hometown of Sault Ste. Marie—an eight-hour drive from our house in Toronto.
Collected during this time period, many of the photographs in this series were taken on these clouded road trips, along the highway that both literally and figuratively connected Rylee to her mother. Shot entirely on 35mm film, the series takes on an ethereal quality. Is this really happening, or just a bad dream?
Exploring themes of family, faith, loss and mourning, the images are sequenced as a narrative that takes us from feelings of love and togetherness, to helplessness, to heartbreak and aloneness. Our own emotional clumsiness is ever-present in the images, and displayed with an ironic sense of humour as we clamour to put the pieces back together.