‘Memories in Place’ is a book of photography and artwork by Stephen Elvidge that started as looking at how memories fade through time; and has been developing from the literal to the ephemeral that attempts to show representations, portraits in absence, aftermaths within a space, and a signifier of something that is recalled (when confronted by recent bereavements of both parents and his older brother).

Much of the work was set in the council house where he was born (Clifton Estate, Nottingham), and his parents had lived in for over 50 years. He tried to document his parent’s presence, through projected texts and images; signs of faded occupation. Now these images form an archive, and his response can no longer be from first-hand experience; with his parents or the house.

It is an on-going project that now deals with absence/presence. He had previously specifically responded to what Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida refers to as ‘punctum’. How an aspect of an image; not necessarily the intention of the photographer; could illicit an emotional response from the viewer, triggered by a past experience. which has led Stephen to research the writings of Gaston Bachelard in ‘Poetics of Space’, the ancient Greek theory of ‘Khora’, and the Japanese concept of ‘Ma’; and specifically aspects of work by artists Rachel Whiteread, Christian Boltanski, and Cornelia Parker.

The most recent images he has produced are referring to objects, images, experiences left behind – last vestiges; and what we take with us, i.e. memories and dreams; when confronted by bereavement and a sense of loss.

As an artist/photographer working with retrieval of memory he is creating ‘events’ in which the work searches for its own context and boundaries; it is time itself that is revealed and experienced as the central subject. Since all narratives reference time, he uses these techniques to remind the viewer of their own story and experience of time.