34 Days Missing is an ongoing project documenting the 34 days of 2014 when my younger sister, Alice, was missing, through drawing, textiles and prose.
I started drawing in Quink on the fourth anniversary of Alice’s disappearance, using images and text from newspaper articles and Facebook posts, translating in an almost documentary way, this digital footprint into something physical and tangible. Each drawing was then re-interpreted in layers of translucent silk organza using dye and hand stitch; echoing the distortion and confusion associated with the act of remembering. The silk is precious but fragile, held together with small delicate stitches. Light enough to tremble in breath. Suspended. The piece changes as you move, with words and drawings obscuring and revealing different fragments of past and future, reminiscent of the way memories shift and transform. I took time with each piece, paying quiet attention to my memories.
In 2022, I wrote words to go with the artwork; a mixture of my real-time recollections and my current reflections on that time. The juxtaposition of personal words and gestural marks with newspaper headlines alludes to the crossing of boundaries I experienced, the simultaneous blurring and separating of public and private life. Sometimes the visuals and words align, but more frequently there is a disparity between the abstract image and a more concrete recollection. I use these pieces of writing as starting points for other artworks, and I hope one day to have them published.