Acquired Collective: Lost

LOST
digital scrapbook layout 12ins x 12ins

view larger image here
Eternal father, strong to save
Whose arms hath bound the restless waves
Oh hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea!

Several weeks ago, an item came through on the Arts Council mailing list that announced:
"the formation of a brand new collective. Based predominantly on the scavenging of found object... collaboration... communication... and fundamentally the creation of publications showcasing contemporary illustrators and artists in new mediums. Online plus paper based archive of results. Get involved." How could I resist? I emailed to register my interest and in due course, received a photograph and instructions.

Instructions: Use this photograph in an artwork. The content and media are entirely up to you. Take your time with it, but please take no longer than a month. Then please send the creation to Acquired Collective.

The little photograph looks to be a copy that has been mounted on thin card and the original was clearly a cheap print, badly retouched. The simple backdrop and lack of props, suggest that it may have been taken in a makeshift travelling booth by an itinerant photographer. Closer inspection has led me to believe that the child was a young lad who had not yet graduated to wearing trousers as the hands are quite large. The woman's left hand appears to be deformed in some way. Who were these strangers? What was their story? I needed to live with this little group for a while, to get a sense of them before deciding what their imaginary fate should be. They were clearly poor. The couple (whom I assume to have been the child's parents) look pensive, possibly nervous and preoccupied; the child looks straight ahead, clear-eyed and determined. Perhaps this image was captured as a last momento before they embarked upon a long and perilous journey to a new life on the other side of the world: a risk worth taking for a family with little or nothing to loose. What happened next? Did they make it safely to their new land? As they have been put into my hands, I feel some responsibility for their fate, but I cannot promise that this story has a happy ending.