The concussion disrupted my life with a disorienting suddenness, as though someone had turned off the lights in a bustling room. What followed was a period of isolation, my own reluctant confinement within the dark corners of my apartment in Montreal. It was here, in this self-imposed seclusion, that I was forced to confront not just the physical limits of my injured brain but the very nature of impermanence itself.
Photography had been my profession, my way of engaging with the world. Through the lens, I shaped moments into stillness, freezing time and taking a piece of it with me. Every image a gesture towards memory, a way to fix the fluidity of experience if only for a moment. But my injury stole that from me. My movements were restricted, and my senses dulled, leaving me with little more than my own thoughts and the slow decay of the things around me.
I began to explore the idea of decay, not as an abstract concept but as something intensely tactile. Fruits rotting on the kitchen counter, the slow crawl of mold on forgotten leftovers, the gentle creases in my hands—each became a meditation on the impermanence that we so often refuse to acknowledge. And so I picked up my camera and began making images. I juxtaposed these images of decay with those of more durable objects: plastics that seemed immune to time, glass that withstood the elements. The contrast was stark and unsettling, a reminder that while some things might resist decay, nothing is truly permanent.
Photography, in its essence, is an exercise in capturing the ephemeral. Each click of the shutter is an acknowledgment of the passing moment, a silent nod to the impermanence inherent in life. And yet, even as we attempt to capture these moments, we know they are already gone. The photograph may freeze a sliver of time, but it is never a guarantee of permanence. Polaroids fade, prints degrade, and even the digital images that promise longevity are subject to the whims of technology and time.
One day during my isolation, while looking through old family photographs, I was struck by the sense of loss that accompanied each image. The youthful faces of my grandparents, the faded colors, the crumbling edges—it was as if the decay in the physical photo mirrored the passing of the people within it. There was a melancholic beauty to this, a poignant reminder that the act of capturing a moment does not preserve it but rather signals its inevitable end.
And so my photographic project became a meditation on this theme of impermanence. I began to create an archive of images that reflected the transient nature of existence. The collection was not intended to be coherent or easily explained. It was a study in contrasts, a visual representation of the tension between what lasts and what inevitably decays. The subject was not always clear, and the narrative was often elusive. But perhaps that was the point: to embrace the ambiguity, to find meaning in the shifting landscapes of our lives, and to accept that impermanence is the only true constant.
