In Moniker, I examine the resultant collaborative photographs between my deceased grand-mother and myself through our collaboration over a single roll of film that was left in an inherited camera for decades. My dad's mother was named Moreen. I'm not sure if this was her real name as she was adopted as a child after WWI. I inherited her old Yashica camera a few years ago- my parents thought it would interest me. She died in 1994- I believe. I would have been 1. I didn't know her or have memories of her, but I suppose her death was the first one that I experienced. My childhood homes were always scattered about with her objects and memories that I didnt have attached to them.
I didn't really know how to use the Yashica, and exposed the film that was left in it on a handful of occasions. I never thought about the film that was already inside the camera, what the photos contained- Moreen's last roll. I used it to take some images of Non-Spaces, and again exposed it a number of times trying to remove it afterward. When the images were developed, I was shocked to see a face like mine staring back amongst an array of chemical colors. Upon closer inspection, I couldn't tell what photos were mine or Moreen''s. The "me" in the photo couldn't be more than a year old, around the time she died. Upon an even closer inspection, the images of me appear to be images of images. I dont have a recollection of this moment that the photos document. But I was there, I lived it, she saw it.
