R.Harvey.Hobbs

Documenting M

Social Art Project - 2014/15

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Documentation of daily photographs, text, collages & drawings. Over a period of three months, in a series of photographs, drawings and text, Documenting M, recorded the single parent relationship, between mother and daughter. Taken during a time of magnified stress and vulnerability, the intimate thoughts and responses reflected on motherhood through the complexity of depression, anxiety, mundane routine and threat of homelessness. Showing the conflict between society’s expectations of a mother and the struggle to cope.

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Day 10-       23.10.14

Swimming Lessons

 

I am the human example of an oxymoron;

In swimming pools, I am a fish out of water.

 

We’re early. Too early.

It looks like we’re eager to be there.

I’m not.

A child asks Matilda, “Why don’t you wear goggles?”

She replies,

 

“Nobody in my family can swim.

I am the only one.

That’s why I don’t wear goggles.”

 

There is a child in the class that won’t stop crying.

She cried the entire lesson long.

I wonder why?

Maybe she just doesn’t want to go swimming.

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Day 37-       19.11.14

The boiler is broken. Again.

The house is so cold that I am struggling to work despite having on four thick layers of clothing.

I am cold and in pain.

For me this pain is temporary. It has to be.

It makes me focus even more on change.

This will and has to change.

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