For this series, Buried in the Left Behind, I collaborated
with a genealogist who specializes in finding the last living heirs to
great fortunes. The homes here documented have been abandoned for as
many as four generations; the people who once lived inside replaced with
cobwebs and vegetation.
But their possessions remain—heavy mahogany furniture, treasures from a trip to China, a wedding photo in a frame—posed in the exact same positions as when their owner left, like a snapshot, only slowly deteriorating. The genealogist are able to read these objects like dusty memoirs. They tell him who the owners were, what they cared about, and whom they loved. With this series of still-lifes photos, my intention was to invite the viewer to actively consider these objects as the embodiment of stories of the people who owned them. And to consider their own spaces and objects, imagining the stories they’d tell.
But their possessions remain—heavy mahogany furniture, treasures from a trip to China, a wedding photo in a frame—posed in the exact same positions as when their owner left, like a snapshot, only slowly deteriorating. The genealogist are able to read these objects like dusty memoirs. They tell him who the owners were, what they cared about, and whom they loved. With this series of still-lifes photos, my intention was to invite the viewer to actively consider these objects as the embodiment of stories of the people who owned them. And to consider their own spaces and objects, imagining the stories they’d tell.