Annabel Schipper

This is my sun. 
The sun that holds all the memories I have of her,  
my mother. 
 
The sun warms, it feeds, just as a mother does. 
After my mother passed away, I longed for something physical that reflects her as a person.  
 
Now 3 years later I return to the images I made during my mother’s illness and after her passing. In these memories, the sun had a quiet yet constant presence.  

By using it’s suns light and a light sensitive emulsion, I print the images on fabric – I revisit the memory. The same sun that once shone during those moments, now actively develops the images. Each developed print becomes a renewed encounter with the past. Then, I unravel the printed cloths, thread by thread – I digest the memory. And from these threads I embroider a large sun – I transform the memory.  

I give the memories a new place in this sun, it holds my grief and memories. Though the original images are no longer visible, their essence remains, embedded in the fibres of the object.  

The slow and time-consuming process of the by hand embroidered object mirrors the mourning process itself. This project represents the never ending iterative process of grief. It functions as a medium to navigate throught the different stages of grief, it comes and goes, moving in circles. Over time, it softens, but it is never truly finished.