Arnica by Rosemary Haynes

Issue 170

This is a project about mothers. About returning to your family, about coming of age, and along the way it’s a project about missing our mothers. It’s a project about how social reproductive labor is nothing without birth, and how birth leads to death, sometimes more quickly than other times.

It’s a project about grief. About how do you help someone to grieve a person that they never got to know. It’s a project about how do you help someone to grieve a person that knew them better than you ever could, especially now. It’s a project about in reality, why should anyone be making images about other people’s grief.

This series, titled Arnica, can be described as a ballad which my late stepmother, Heather, didn’t have the chance to finish. A storybook for my brother, of the mother he longs to know. A family album for us all, where our present can find abundance with the past.

Arnica explores notions of maternal labor and care, the imperfections in showing up, and a family motto, never don’t swim. A series of photographs which can be seen as submerged in loss, indelibly carrying moments of radical joy. Submerged in the security and uncertainty of water, much like a womb.

Rosemary Haynes (she/her) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
rosemaryhaynes.com | @_rosemaryhaynes