This piece reinterprets a collage assembled by my grandmother, containing the remaining images of her and my grandfather’s family. Created as a 1:1 scale replica using the cyanotype process, and re-toned with St. John’s Wort, the work integrates a plant historically associated with healing and used to treat depression. Given my family’s long-standing history of mental illness, the saturation of these images with the plant serves as a symbolic gesture of healing. It is a way for me to question whether natural remedies, like St. John’s Wort, can break cycles of trauma and cultivate peace within my familial lineage.

The blurring reflects the intergenerational loss and dissociation from family roots over time, as older generations pass. These distortions, which render the subjects unrecognizable, parallel the loss of visual detail with the diminishing familial knowledge passed down through generations.

Excerpts from conversations with my grandparents about the collage and our family history are preserved within envelopes of letters they’d sent me in the past. These stories delve into themes of trauma, healing, nostalgia, and memory. Through this exploration of my family archive, the work contemplates the preservation of familial memory. By gathering these fragmented stories, I seek to hold onto what remains of my family’s legacy.