Place of Memories

I have been having fun with my photography whilst I have been on holiday in Hawaii. For the most part I have been working on a short series of images around Waimea in the North of Hawaii where I have been staying. I plan a separate post on this series later.

I also made a short trip ‘off island’ to Kauai. It is a magical place with lush green vegetation, 5000 ft peaks coming straight down to the sea and lots of ravines and canyons. This is not to mention beautiful beaches, which sadly are often dangerous for swimmers given the high waves and rip currents.

Surprisingly given all this natural wonder around me, the place I enjoyed the most was the Grove Farm Homestead. Sugar cane was the chief agricultural industry on Kauai for over 150 years. George N. Wilcox, the son of missionary teachers, acquired the land near Lihue which became the Grove Farm sugar plantation in 1864. Around a hundred years later his grand niece Mabel Wilcox, at the age of 92, created a trust to operate the homestead as a museum. It is a time capsule, a place of memories. It is perfectly preserved just as it was on the day it became a museum…..

I have made a short video of my visit there which records my personal memories of the place. I can be accessed by clicking on the photograph below:

I think my interest in this place stems from my current fascination about how photographs link with memory and how context informs the reading of photographs. By presenting a series of photographs the reading of each image is informed by those around it. My intention is that the images to become places for contemplation. I want the viewer to use their imagination when thinking about what the people who lived in this place. The series also represents my personal memories of the place.