It will be a portrait in absentia,
an outline drawn around an empty space,
and little by little a figure will emerge from the background,
pieced together from everything she was not
The story of the work began in 2002 when I discovered an old diary in a recycling centre in Dundee. It had belonged to a Mrs Mary Milne, and contained her handwritten account of life between 1975 and 1988. This inspired a series of works in a variety of media, exploring general themes of mortality, loss and legacy. I then went on to write a speculative letter to each of a series of addresses found in the diary. Shortly afterwards I received a reply that led to a long-term correspondence with a Linda Milne, step-granddaughter of the diary's author.
Linda, who now lives on the outskirts of Sydney, emigrated with her parents from Scotland to Australia aged eleven. After arriving she wrote letters to her grandmother regularly until the latter’s death. When her grandfather remarried, Linda continued the correspondence with his new wife - Mary Milne. Then, when her grandfather died in the late 1980s, Mary became Linda's only remaining contact in Scotland - the country she still refers to as 'home'. Though Linda never met Mary, they had a regular letter contact up until the late 1990s when Mary suddenly stopped replying. Linda had to assume that she had passed away and accept that her one remaining contact with Scotland was lost. That was until she received my letter in 2006.
Through our subsequent correspondence it emerged that Linda is a spiritual medium. She believes that our lives are already mapped out for us, that there is no such thing as coincidence in life, and that my finding the diary and contacting her had been directed by a higher, undefined power.
I travelled to Australia in 2008 to meet Linda in person and to give her the diary. Working with Australian artist Kathryn Gray, we documented the meeting through sound, video and photography. Linda discussed her memories of Scotland, her distress at losing touch with Mary and ‘home’, and her own belief in the power of spirit. She refuted my skeptical position, and my use of the word ‘coincidence’ as we discussed our conflicting perspective on what was driving the story.
Once back in Scotland, I travelled to Dundee on Linda’s behalf to search the death records to discover what became of Mary. Her death certificate revealed that Mary, who we had presumed dead for almost ten years, had in fact died only days before, on December 1st 2008, the very day that I had left Australia. This startling new information strengthened Linda’s conviction that there was more than coincidence driving the story, believing that Mary had stayed alive long enough to see I reached Australia to make the connection with her.
The death certificate also contained other revelatory information, notably that her mother's surname prior to marriage was Fallon, giving rise to the potential of an unlikely familial connection between Mary and myself, further weakening the case for ‘coincidence’.
In 2011 I returned to Sydney to reunite with Linda to discuss these new revelations, and further document and develop the process with Kathryn.
