Cara Lee
Wade

Legacy: Alzheimer's Stories

My Grandmothers (Gram and Granny) were both diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1999 within months of one another. They lost the ultimate battle in 2004, again within months of one another. As a result, I have become obsessed with absorbing my Grandmothers' and consequently my own past. As they struggled to retain their identity and their memories, I am now determined to gather them and add them to my own. The result is this imagery.

I have collected items and locations belonging to and inspired by my Grandmothers as well as my own physical and mental inheritance. Using myself and these everyday things along with my memories and those given to me by members of my family as well as a vast collection of family photographs, I have built narratives within the frame. Through the years and through the course of creating, some of the narratives stray, and thusly this has become a reflection of myself to a much greater extent than I could have imagined and I have realized just how deeply rooted in my past I am. On a conscious level, I still find myself tormented with anger and helplessness, sadness and fear. On another, this has become a healing venture.

Images are captured with a 1947 4x5 Graflex Press camera and archivally printed.