In 2024, I began documenting and labelling a collection of 490 family photographs salvaged from a house clearance in the UK. Over the course of the year, I catalogued, researched, and responded to this found archive. The resulting series shares a selection of those images and offers a glimpse into the lives of the Poynton family, showing how they used photography to record and communicate their vision of family life.

Photograph 44 was the key that unlocked their story. It allowed me to trace the family’s roots and begin connecting their past to the present, ensuring their memories live on.

The Poyntons were originally from Birmingham emigrating to Canada in 1924. Through the photographs they sent back to loved ones in Britain, they stayed connected across distance and time. Preserving these images and uncovering the history within them became central to my work. Many of the photos had handwritten notes on the back, through these their story slowly unfolded and I gained a deeper connection to the family.

I fell in love with this family through their curated dream of family life. I am currently working on a way to present how this incredible experience unfolded for me, rich with serendipity, almost like these photographs were waiting to be found for their story to live on.

Art critic John Berger once argued that photography’s reproducibility and non rarity value rendered it incapable of being fine art, I disagree. These images, their ghosts, their dreams, their recorded lives can not be replaced. They are deeply human artefacts and worthy of preserving.

All OUR STORIES ARE.