(back to images)
a bowl of tear to drink
I went to Tymawr convent in South Wales looking for answers.
I wanted to know what I could learn from a life so different from my own.
Over the course of two years and multiple stays, the five nuns
of Tymawr graciously opened their lives to me, encouraging me to take up space with my cameras and questions.
What does it mean to be present, to live a clear and certain life?
How does it feel to know the answers to complex questions surrounding life and death? To feel at peace in one’s existence?
We discussed what brought them to this chosen path, and what they hope for in their devotion. I became interested in what brings them together, what separates them, and what it means to live in a female-led community and a predominantly silent space. I asked them about the topics that stir anxiety in me: solitude, death, having children, letting go of control, and the masks we wear to hide ourselves from other people.
These questions — unanswered, unanswerable — generated a series of images.
The work eventually became an exploration of a longing for meaning and connection to others, and the ways I am seeking to make sense of my existence through the places I live, the time I am living in, the people I know, and our shared rituals.
I went to Tymawr convent in South Wales looking for answers.
I wanted to know what I could learn from a life so different from my own.
Over the course of two years and multiple stays, the five nuns
of Tymawr graciously opened their lives to me, encouraging me to take up space with my cameras and questions.
What does it mean to be present, to live a clear and certain life?
How does it feel to know the answers to complex questions surrounding life and death? To feel at peace in one’s existence?
We discussed what brought them to this chosen path, and what they hope for in their devotion. I became interested in what brings them together, what separates them, and what it means to live in a female-led community and a predominantly silent space. I asked them about the topics that stir anxiety in me: solitude, death, having children, letting go of control, and the masks we wear to hide ourselves from other people.
These questions — unanswered, unanswerable — generated a series of images.
The work eventually became an exploration of a longing for meaning and connection to others, and the ways I am seeking to make sense of my existence through the places I live, the time I am living in, the people I know, and our shared rituals.