As July comes to a close, I’m feeling that distinct shift in the air. The work now feels less like making and more like tending. Nurturing what’s been created. Letting go, gently, and watching it find its way. I’m moving between moments of calm and sudden waves of anxiety—feeling organised one minute, then overwhelmed by the sheer number of small details I’ve yet to remember, all held together by a strange, almost suspicious sense of calm beneath it all.
The exhibition launch is just around the corner: 7 August, 6–8:30PM at St Peter’s Church, St Albans. I would love to see you there.
This past month has been full and quietly emotional. I’ve now finished knitting together all 210 grief letters—each one its own offering, holding the weight of a name, a memory, a voice. It’s been a slow, meditative act. Repetitive in a way that allowed something else to surface—something deeper than words.
A new body of work has also emerged and the structure itself—and the space is now beginning to take shape. This part of the process has been less about control and more about trust. I’m learning to step back and let the project breathe. At this stage, just weeks before the opening, it feels like most of what I’m doing is offering—extending my hand, creating space, and inviting others in. What happens next is no longer in my hands.
This month, I also:
– recruited a small group of wonderful volunteers who will help hold the space throughout the exhibition
– sent out invitations and finalised the exhibition text
– created participatory prompts for visitors to respond to grief in their own words or gestures
– and began work on evaluation forms to help reflect on what this project has held—for me and for others
And some beautiful things have already come from outside:
Letters to Forever was recently featured in St Albans Times, and I had a moving conversation on Mix 92.6 Radio with Sadie from The Grief Lounge Podcast, where we explored how grief lives in the body, in sound, and in shared language.
A big milestone this month: the film and performance piece is now complete! Created in collaboration with Casey Francis, this work will be shown on 28 August at 7PM, as the closing event of the project. It’s a semi-experimental piece made over nine months of remote collaboration—a layering of film, poetry, soundscape and live readings, inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Now it’s time to rehearse and shape the performance element into something that can be shared with others, vulnerably and truthfully.
And always, there is inspiration. A visit to Do Ho Suh’s exhibition at Tate Modern stayed with me—the way his transparent fabric homes recreated the places he once lived, evoking both presence and absence. That feeling—of ghosted space, of memory stitched into air—resonates so deeply with Letters to Forever.
And a book, gifted to me by a friend: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson. In it, a line that has lodged itself in the very centre of this project: “Creative work bridges time… Life + art is a boisterous communion with the dead. It is a boxing match with time.” That’s exactly what these grief letters are. Not an attempt to fix what’s lost, but to honour it. To keep connection alive in a language that stretches beyond time.
