A Joining of Self (2023/2024)

'In A Joining of Self, Suella Holland stages a meeting of past and present selves in a process of healing . . . Instead of describing, retreating via the language of psychoanalysis outwards and back to a safe place, Holland invites me to sit with the child she meets here, and to see. Word becomes image; memory becomes thought, then line, then letter. Whisper becomes whipstitch, secret becomes declaration, pulling the thread of past into present so that it can be folded back again into the fabric of time where it belongs, if it belongs anywhere.' — Jennifer Good, Source Photographic Review

A site-specific portrait of fragmented childhood and recollections of abuse, A Joining of Self incorporates memories of different fabrics, dissociative experiences and phrases of manipulation that were used to threaten and enforce secrecy, ultimately breaking a  silence that has been kept for forty years.

Challenging myself by visiting a house that is a clone of my childhood home, I faced my own emotional turmoil and translate these feelings and memories into a visual language which has enabled me to express a past that I have been unable to articulate in words.

Shrouded in secrecy and made to fear that no one will believe them, children keep silent about abuse. Words that were used to manipulate them echo through their minds, making most people too afraid to speak out.

Within this work I have recreated scenes from fragmented memories and utilised photography and stitching as a means of expression. Photographed on film with the abuser’s twin lens reflex camera I have converted the male gaze to that of the female child’s and taken back control of the past.

A reclamation of power, A Joining of Self comes face to face with that past and strives to choose courage over fear and acceptance over criticism. This inner union is powerful as its connection brings unity and balance to both the conscious and subconscious selves.

Published as a PhotoIreland TLP Editions zine. 

Published in Source Photographic Review #115, Summer 2024

13 April – 8 June 2024:  Solstice Arts Centre, Meath.
‘In Conversation’ with author Emilie Pine, Thursday 23 May 2024.

Exhibited in The Darkroom, 32 Brunswick St N, Dublin D07 TWX3 20 July- 4 August 2023. The exhibition was part of the PhotoIreland festival Open Programme.

A selection of work from A Joining of Self was exhibited at Belfast Exposed Gallery as part of Ulster University MFA Photography Degree show in June/July 2023.