Out of Focus is a creative response to being unexpectedly locked down for six months with my parents in the UK.

 

Despite speaking to them twice a week nothing could have prepared me for the discovery of their weight loss, change of personality and mental state. In essence they and their lives had become OUT OF FOCUS. During that visit they decided it was time to move house and together we began to filter their belongings, finding a huge box of over 4000 visual slides of photos mostly shot on his beloved Canon camera.

 

Each 1 inch square image captured a frozen moment in time like a piece of mosaic. Collectively these slides told the story of their lives, some of which I had shared too and this was my motivation as Sylvia and Gordon Helliwell approach the age of 90 together.

During lockdown I projected the slides and recorded my parents’ reactions, later editing and digitising a proportion of them. It is these images and sounds that Tomás Moran and Adam Kennedy have worked with to create the visuals and soundscape.

 

Being custodian, I accept that as their memories fragment the relevance of some of these slides will be lost, whilst others will be diluted through the generations. Having been present when a proportion of these pictures were taken, has not only shaped who I have become but ignited my interest in how memories are triggered by our senses, whether that be visual, smell, sound or touch. Our personal recall, like our DNA, is unique depending on our previous experiences, but when cells start to die in different parts of the brain, our cognitive ability, speech, memory and personalities can change. These can be symptoms of Dementia. Science is now proving that if a memory is in the brain, it can be woken up by the right stimulation. The key to aiding people living with Dementia is to find that trigger.