Langden is a series of photographs from a place I run and walk called Langden Valley. It is a really beautiful place where my late husbands ashes are scattered. These were taken over two and a half years. The first in July 2014, three months before my late husband was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. As we travel through time, the seasons change and the images become more solitary reflecting my personal grief and loneliness. My children being present at the beginning and the end also seems meaningful, the start is summer and Dominic is alive, at the end it is two years on and they are gathering stones to mark the spot where his ashes are.

 

Having read many books on grief and other peoples experiences, there seems to be something in repetition in grief, visiting graves, listening to the same songs, visiting the same place over and over. In the book H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, she uses repetition in flying her hawk as a way of escaping her grief after her father passed away, the artist Forouhar repeats images especially of butterflies and myself repeatedly running the same route in the same valley and photographing this experience. These are forms of escape, escape from grief.

 

Alongside this I have been writing letters, these are letters of thanks to people who have helped me over the past three years, no matter how small an act or how little I knew them, strangers can show great kindness, sometimes more than the people we know best. This idea came from a letter my late husband gave me five months before he passed away. Had he not of been terminally ill he would never have told me those things. I like the idea that letters are permanent and well thought through, you can make sure you have said everything you wanted to, take your time and the recipient can keep your words forever.

 

I want my work to have a positive element, if I could get people to say the things they think, tell the people they care about they love them and how much they appreciate them as life can change in a day.

 

 

Kate Eveson Hester