Transitions hones in on sentimental objects both in life and death, allowing the factual articles depicted within reality (the physical photographic image) to fuse together a lapse in dormant memory.

Surah’s late mother’s possessions both lived in, experienced her form and existence, they resemble a trace of her but more so a narrative embracing her life and death. A poncho suspended placidly in negative space recalls nostalgia to her memory, a longing for the person who once occupied this previously warm yet delicately scented clothing... an item dear to Surah and his mother. In juxtaposition we face a hospital gown, hanging futile, dull and cold, reminiscent of deaths odour within a clinically pungent hospital environment, the gown Surah’s mother departed this world wearing, leaving behind the object and sentiment of her passing. Flowers depict an emblematic state of life and fragility but also embrace their very mortality in surrender to passing, a gift to the departed soul harmonizing a transition of past and present.

Christian Boltanski States 'In my early work I pretended to speak about my childhood, yet my real childhood had disappeared. I have lied about it so often that I no longer have a real memory of this time, and my childhood has become for me some kind of universal childhood, not a real one'. Similarly, the trauma of mortality has reduced Surah’s mental depiction of his mother’s death, causing a watered-down translation of factual memory that can be added and subtracted too when recalling the moment of death embedded within the subconscious overtime.

Farr, Ian (2014) Memory (Documents of Contemporary Art). Page 11 London: Whitechapel Gallery Mit Press.

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Farr, Ian (2014) Memory (Documents of Contemporary Art). Page 11 London: Whitechapel Gallery Mit Press.