Hoarding and procrastination are Jones family traits. After two years of discussion, cancelled dates and prevaricating, we finally agreed a date to rifle through the boxes of childhood memorabilia and random items that had been collected over the years. We all congergated one sunny, Sunday afternoon – parents, brother and niece – and collectively embraced the task that had long been at the back of everyone’s minds.
Photography is often described as paradox, no moment can ever be truly captured. Just as we keep things from our past, stored away in boxes, present but not visible, in order to preserve memories- these moments can still never truly be captured. Those items exist as a physical entity, to record the thing that happened. I found this was an interesting parallel to photography. The traditional photography process was used as a metaphor during the inception of psychoanalysis. The image on the negative remains latent and unknowable until developed. Our memories – including those bestowed on physical objects – remain latent until ‘developed’ or revisited, as with our opening of the boxes in the garages after several years.