Valda Jackson MA MRSS RWA

Handle With Care (two) is a development of my short film Handle With Care (2016), made for the project ‘Literary Archaeology’, a collaboration between Literary Scholar, Archaeologists and Writers. We studied human remains excavated from a burial ground for enslaved plantation workers on a Caribbean Island; bones of our ancestors, brutalised and traumatised. My concern was how to make these bones, these remnants more than – matter; and matter more than just objects of scientific investigation. Handle With Care is a layering of image and voices recalling historical narratives – the voice of the enslaved – but also the voice of present current traumas around migrations, displacement, and loss. Now, Handle With Care (two) is an excavation of my own archives. Work made over decades, most of which contain elements of loss, of grief that drifts like a hurting child who seems to wander across each page, sheet, or canvas, sitting unattended in every sculpture; yet she has been given no relief. Glanced over. This further layering of archival images some of which are public art commissions such as ‘Girl’s Pinafores’ completed while I was caring for, and then grieving the loss of a sister – these additional layers recognise works created, and marks made within grief. It  is acknowledging the broad spectrum of loss – including separations and migration. In this work, I begin to look towards that wandering lost child maybe to rescue her, or at least to be accountable.

©Valda Jackson