The Long Mourning

The Long Mourning is about witnessing my dad’s deterioration from dementia. The diptychs pair the state of his condition during our visits with my emotional reaction as I photographed the places of shared memories in an effort to decompress before the next visit. The title refers to the three times I lost my dad, starting age 7 when Mom moved the kids to a new country and Dad was only allowed to see us 4 weeks each year. As an adult I visited Dad more than Mom, until his increased agitation made it impossible to visit for more than 36 hours. In his final years, isolated from society and family, I tried to give him back the moments we had lost. The border around each diptych represents the international border that divided us. And yet the border connected us, with every hello and goodbye at airport customs. Our lives blended for brief moments when the borders between us almost disappeared.