The Summerkids.

Juried Exhibition @ Saint John Arts Centre
(Saint John, New Brunswick Canada)
03 May - 28 June, 2024

For any moment that we remember perhaps a thousand more are lost to the passage of time. What determines exactly what moments stay and which ones go?

The Summerkids is a series of stories gathered across a few spread-out days spent with Harry, Merlin, and Iris in the summer of 2023, all captured in or directly around their home. On filming and photography days, I arrived and got set up, chatted with the kids, and then typically set to documenting. The kids were gracious hosts and playmates, and we shared meals, laughter, made art, and talked together about the big things of summer -- from neighborhood walks to family trips to sleep away camp.

The exhibition was organized by themes and moments, some large and some small, that emerged and/or took place during each of the visits. Everything from a jubilant celebration of the Last Day of Kindergarten to the satisfyingly mundane pushing of a water jug full of chalky water off of a high railing onto grass below to waiting in a van that was being cleaned out in preparation for a big road trip.

Photographs were accompanied by reflections and
invitations to further thinking and imagining.

Visitors to the exhibition shared their own reflections on (and drawings of) cherished childhood memories. It felt valuable to include this participatory element that enabled visitors, across time, age, and other separating factors, to contribute to the record of collective memory where they might share their stories and frame them, embellish them, or even withhold detail from them, as they saw fit.