Simon Weldon – To you all from us
WORDS BY THOMAS DUFFIELD
To you from all of us is an ongoing project made by Leeds based photographer Simon Weldon, working with, and in response to, his late father’s extensive archive. The body of work conscientiously weaves together archival photographs, new photographs, and letters that respond to his ongoing experience as the work continues to grow and develop.
Delving deeper into his father’s unusual family photographs, there is a tantalising allure embedded within their hopeful promise of providing resolution to his father’s passing. However, this endeavour is not without its own difficulties.
“The emotional weight of this inherited archive provided irresistible potential in which to uncloak and connect past experiences with the present, and readdress often painful memories of him and the alcoholism which took his life.”
Working in this way awakens a collaboration. Akin to a conversation between father and son that transcends his father’s physical absence. Instead, trading on the emotional resonance of his father’s legacy that not only lives on in thought and in heart, but is amplified by his photographic archive. The large archive is a continual source of intrigue for Weldon, who describes finding solace whilst engaging in the myriad of self-printed photographs, negatives, and colour slides.
Image Credit: Michael Weldon
“What became obvious was that these fragments displayed more than the characteristic, ritual documentation of a family. Entwined between the photographs of new-borns, family Christmases and weddings is a remarkable portrait of his everyday life throughout Leeds during the 1970’s not intended for the family album. His absorbing photographs are a quiet documentation revealing a faded history of children playing in pub beer gardens, workers drinking tea at work, teddy boys, slum clearances and enigmatically, a clear obsession with expressing himself playfully through photography.”
Many of Simon’s own photographs offer a stable counterpart to the often fleeting, lively moments depicted in his father’s archive. The new photographs made in response to the archive feature everyday moments close to home in Leeds. They show those left behind, his mother gently holding a paper bag filled with kumquats in the warm sunlight. While another shows her gazing out of the window at passing clouds, the reflection of the sky partially obscuring her face. Further photographs follow the meandering course of the River Aire that runs through Leeds. Guided loosely by the river the photographs ruminate on the memories that were shared beside this ever-moving water. Described by Simon as a “challenging physical and mental pilgrimage that traces the archive and the meandering route of his final resting place of the River Aire”
Some of the photographs depict this humble but picturesque landscape of Leeds, while others present us with more ambiguity. Such as a hole in the earth falling to a seemingly indefinite depth beside the river, the grass bowing in its direction.
Throughout the ongoing project, inherent contradictions within the photographic medium are encountered. Looking at the archive, the often persuasive power that photographs hold as seemingly accurate transcriptions of reality present the promise of resolution and clarity. However, this pursuit for answers sometimes raises more questions. The intricacies within photographs hold qualities that grow more elusive the longer that we look at them.
“Embracing him through the archive, what became frustratingly apparent was that despite beholding this enormous, chaotic archive; the photographs ultimately proved inadequate in understanding his path. Missing index or order for the means to resurrect and foster a biographical, historical narrative the archive resisted the means to find relief from our emotionally exhausting experience that we faced together as a family. Ultimately his archive exhibited the fundamental paradox present in photographs; that although extraordinary powerful in their suggestion of authentic historical reality, they remain inadequate, subjective suggestions”
Emerging as a particularly pertinent photograph in the series is a black and white image of his father jumping into a calm body of water. Suspended in the air above, it’s difficult to know how far from the water his feet are as they anticipate the surface. The brief sense of weightlessness is held still by the photograph, a stillness that is amplified when we consider the splash of water that would naturally follow moments after the image was taken. Distilling his motivations for the work, Weldon takes time to reflect on the ongoing project: “The work is a celebration of the traces one man has left behind, yet it is also a pursuit for peace from a painful family legacy, the transient nature of life, and a final goodbye to the man I loved despite his flaws”