They Greet Me With Goodbye by Chandler Hubbard

Issue 184

They Greet Me With Goodbye is based in the California landscape, a space where many of my memories have been feebly formed. Over a 10-year period, these images emerged in response to the fallibility of memory, when recognition and detail are mutually exclusive. The photographs in this project are memories of people and places that, to my traumatized brain, manifest with barriers. Objects and postures perform as partitions, demonstrating a memory that aches for certainty and falls short. These moments are simultaneously whole and fragmented, a representation of completeness that is flawed.

Many of these photographs were taken at my childhood home, documenting activities that have happened with regularity over the past decade: filling the bird bath (For the Birds), inspecting the peach tree (Watching the Curl (Hoping to be Fruitful)), gazing over the yard while soaking in the sun (Wishing You Would Turn). Others are extensions of the experience of home: frequent road trips, visits with friends, or keeping up family traditions from afar (Touch, Fall). The present assures the most clarity, of course, but the further I travel from the moment, the more eager my memories are to greet me with goodbye.

Chandler Hubbard (he/him) lives and works in Santa Barbara County, California, USA.
www.chandlerhubbardart.com | @mrbeardsly