Artist/Photographer Mandy Williams is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Re-Place’. To see Mandy’s body of work, click on any image.
Many of my projects have been about place. This project is about the different locations mentioned in my teenage diaries. Though curious about these places after such a long time, the process is not about nostalgia, more the need to create a small action to acknowledge the passage of time, to overlay the past with a gesture from the present.
Before I leave for Sussex I tear out the selected diary pages, roll and tie them up with ribbon. I want them to look inviting, to provoke somebody’s curiosity. Each page mentions a particular place and when I go there I’m thinking about the story that was written all that time ago but also experiencing it in the present – seeing a new film, eating a meal, walking along a stretch of beach. I take photographs of the location, the people passing by and the diary pages as I leave them.
Some pages aren’t meant to be found, they are swept out to sea or placed deep in the landscape. Some have been left very publicly and I would wait to see who would find them and whether they’d be curious enough to pick them up and read them.
All images and text © Mandy Williams
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By Mandy Williams
