27/05/2025
Some time ago the brilliant Zoe Norfolk Photography reached out locally for stories of grief and loss and responded with such thoughtfulness, patience and compassion to my sharing.
Here's the result.
New work:
Continuing my long term project focusing on loss and absence.
I photographed Alexa at the end of last year, we discussed the loss of her homeland. This week seemed a poignant time to post her words and picture.
Alexa
"Following the kidnapping of 251 Israelis on October 7th I find myself looking on in bewilderment at the loss of a place that, whilst acknowledging the deepest of its flaws, was always one of hopeful empowerment, many of its citizens working tirelessly to promote peace. As Israel’s democracy crumbles I wonder whether this is another nail in the coffin of the Jewish capacity for togetherness rather than remaining a kind of anti-race other, preferably dead or forced into conversion of some sort. Listening to the pro-Palestinian marches from my Bloomsbury clinic I wonder whether those protesting know of the numerous, thwarted attempts by Israel to propose a two-state solution? I wonder the extent to which Netenyahu’s brutish dismissal of humanity is a response to such thwarting? And I wonder as to the inevitability of division and violence when hatred and power-hunger have become weapons of survival since birth. I find hope now in my work as a psychotherapist with those who are rageful, those who have murdered, those who still believe themselves the perpetual victims. In knowing and respecting all minds and hearts lies some unfathomable answer to bearing the unbearable weight of our being."
