Christine’s Jewellery Box

Bridgit Anderson

PG Gallery 192
192 Bealey Avenue, Christchurch

10 October – 4 November 2023

Christine’s Jewellery Box is about the loss of my mother and a reclaiming of memories.

In 2018, I inherited my father’s garden.

Three years earlier he had said ‘my gardening days are over, do what you like and make it your own.’

In one corner sits a weather-beaten greenhouse.

Not just a place for my plants to thrive, this is also a refractive and dispersive ‘lightbox’; a place where the ever changing weather and filtered light bring a jewel-like quality to the world within.

I was seven years old when my mother Christine died suddenly, with no explanation given.

As a child I loved to wear her jewellery, an activity only permitted when my father wasn’t around. These photographs contain objects from my childhood and others that were given to my mother and then passed on to me.

At the time of her death I didn’t ask questions.

As I grew up it felt like an impossible task.

The freedom to look closely at what had been left behind came with the death of my father.

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