Jenny Nash uses the experiential nature of her practice as an important component in her work. She documents spaces of memory and also appropriate PTSD treatments such as returning to sites of past trauma with her camera. Alternatively she confront past trauma in self portraiture sessions which enable her to access deep memories and converse with elements of my history thought to have been abandoned to my unconscious. This is all practiced within the perimeters of her own methodologies Solo-Phototherapy and Auto-Pathography, her own version of the lens-based work developed by Rosy Martin, Jo Spence and Dr. Spencer Rowell.
Bluebells and Bitter Tea (2018)
Dedicate to my pal David Summers.
Every time I drink tea with milk I think of you;
The smell reminds me of the kitchen.
The colour reminds me of the wooden cupboards.
The way it warms my centre reminds me of your arms and of your laugh.
I can’t drink tea with no milk;
The bitter taste it leaves in my mouth reminds me of what was left behind.
The way the heat hurts my eye reminds me of the shit they said that brought tears to my eyes.
The way it burns my centre reminds me of the pain in my chest when I need you and can’t go to you,
I don’t even know where you are anymore.
A cup of tea forgotten reminds me of your white porcelain hand gone cold and these used memories were just to be thrown away like you never existed.
I still call you on the phone when I need a cup of tea and a chat.
You don’t answer.
Even though I wish it.
