138 Days

On 17 February 2025, I symbolically waved off the T.S.S. Hector in Birkenhead, the ship that, on the same date in 1939, carried my great-great-aunt Joan to India. Though the vessel no longer exists, the gesture marked the beginning of a 138-day process tracing the rhythms of Joan’s journey into the Himalayas and, ultimately, to her death on 4th July.

Each day, I read her diary entry and re-enacted something she had seen or done, recording it in a spiral-bound notebook as she once had. Alongside this, I created both a photograph and a collaged sketchbook page, pairing my responses with her words and images, together with material from my own travels along her route in the summer of 2024.

The process became a dialogue across time: Joan adjusting to an unfamiliar world, and I easing myself into a new artistic practice.