| About "My Grandmother..." |
I went to San Antonio, Texas to visit my 96 year old grandmother who had been living alone in her trailer for 75 years. I recorded our conversations and photographed her during the five days that I was visiting. Growing up, I never knew my grandmother but I heard many stories. I wanted to meet her for myself so I could hear "her" story. When I first met my grandmother, she was sitting in a chair outside her trailer waiting for me to arrive. She immediately started telling me all about her life from as far back as she could remember. When I turned on the recorder and took her photos, she didn't pause or hesitate, she just continued on with her story. Over the next few days, we drank many cups of tea, took field trips to the grocery store and Wal-Mart. I took her to doctor's appointments and I even convinced her to go out to dinner with me (she hadn't been out to dinner in 15 years... so she said). Soon after I left, my grandmother was taken from her trailer by adult protective services and put into a nursing home. She died a year later. *The photographs were shot with a medium format camera and printed on silver gelatin fiber paper. From our conversations, I took direct quotes and recorded them under her photographs to create this documentary of her life. |