Project

Nightshade is a photo media project that delves into themes of family violence and intergenerational trauma by exploring my
mother’s experiences during her relationship with my father. Over twenty tumultuous years, she endured profound hardship, frequently moving home to escape my father’s stalking, violence, and coercive control. The pattern of domestic violence - marked by my father’s charming public facade and private cruelty - is symbolised by the black nightshade, an attractive but toxic plant.

The project parallels my mother’s battle against weeds with her resistance to domestic abuse and coercive control. In creating this work, I mimicked my father’s obsessive stalking by tracking environmental weeds in our area and scrutinising neglected family photographs. My conflicted role as a traumatised witness and confidante to both parents is conveyed through the resonances between contemporary and archival images and documents. Through these images and texts, I aim to reveal complexity and ambiguity, and to repair a traumatic history.

Despite the relentless pressure of family care and domestic instability, my mother found sanctuary and personal power in her passion for gardening and environmental regeneration. Since their separation in the 1980s and my father’s death in a car accident, she has dedicated herself to volunteering in suburban natural bush reserves, tirelessly removing environmental weeds to promote native plant growth. Now in her 90s she maintains a beautiful, meticulously weed-free garden.

I dedicate this project to my darling mother.