This series began with the need to confront a fear I couldn’t quite name. An unease I’d carried for most of my life — not sharp, not always visible, but quietly present underneath almost everything. I knew its shape. I knew its source. But I hadn’t yet found a way to live beyond it.

I decided not to dig through memories or stories anymore. I’d done that part. This time, I chose to simply face the moment where it had all begun — not through words, but through an image. A photograph of myself as a child, projected onto the wall of my studio. I made myself comfortable. Janis Joplin’s Cry Baby on repeat, very loud. A glass of wine, which turned into a bottle. I stared at that forgotten version of myself until I saw her. Not just as a child I used to be, but as someone I had tried to outrun for years.

She was loud. Clever. So damn good at pretending. And I forgave her. Not because she’d done something wrong, but because she had done what she had to do to survive. I forgave her for building a self she didn’t yet know how to inhabit. I thanked her for carrying me this far.

That night, something shifted. The stone in my belly — the one that used to pulse like quiet panic — was gone. And what remained was the need to release. To honour. To make something. These collages are what came out of that.

They’re made with Joss paper — delicate sheets used in rituals of remembrance and release. I didn’t overthink them. They came quickly, like exhalations. Impulsive, intuitive, and deliberately unpolished. A tribute to the girl who kept me safe, and a way to finally put down the weight of what she carried for me.