Portsmouth Open: Karl Bailey

"We watched the sun fall behind the mountain, in that moment, life was simple" is a large-scale, printed fabric piece, containing second-by-second screenshots taken from a family VHS tape in 2003, depicting the sun slowly setting behind the mountains.

My own practice feels deeply ingrained in the family archive, and I believe this is because so much of what we do now, what we enjoy, where we go, and the way we are, is influenced by upbringing. More often than not, the archive represents moments of special occasion and joy, but, for me, it is entwined with thoughts and feelings around what is not there or what is missing, both physically and metaphorically. I am curious to understand the energy that sends and shifts me to revisit, subconsciously or consciously, my own past, which is often influenced
through the act of photography itself, as if my own life is subconsciously linked to it. By going back now, am I searching for an essence of feeling that once existed? Am I trying to see the family structures that existed then (which I wouldn't have seen as a child) to better understand our family dynamic now? Do I grieve for a time that no longer exists? I'm not sure I will ever be able to understand so I turn to the act of making to seek anwsers.