Death & Other Belongings, Signed

 

Death and Other Belongings is a study of loss, fear and legacy. Photographer Will Green caught Covid and lost both his parents to the virus within the course of just two months. The photographs in his forthcoming book were made throughout this intense period when - concurrent with the Covid-19 pandemic - his personal world imploded. Although the photographs are specific to a personal journey and place, they represent the wider experience of human fragility.

 

In March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Green had a project tentatively underway focusing on his home city of Bath. After he contracted Covid which developed into long Covid, the project transmuted into a more inward and emotional story as his circumstances kept him close to home. As a result, he used the cupboard under the stairs as a darkroom and processed the films in his bathroom.

 

‘At the time, a project was not a conscious decision. It was more a process of keeping emotionally stable and experimenting with processing techniques and being distracted when possible…. I am now aware of how many of the images are close-ups. At the time this was not the intention nor considered. Looking back, is this because I was focusing so hard on the small details of home and a closed environment, rather than the real world.’

 

The black and white photographs in the book depict often overlooked details - a dead bee, an empty garden chair sagging with the imprint of previous occupants, apples rotting into decaying leaves and sculptural layers of a spider web - collectively signalling an absence of life. The human presence in the photographs is transitory or abstracted - a blurred figure moving out of frame or textual wet hair on an unidentified shoulder. Green’s photographs illustrate how the legacy of the past can physically linger and can be traced and recorded in the present.

 

The book’s text draws upon Green’s personal experience of losing both parents within a week of each other to Covid-19, juxtaposed with an extract of transcript from the first worldwide ProMed email alert to media about the yet unidentified virus Covid-19.