They Would Wish Me One More Day to Stay – 2022

‘They Would Wish Me One More Day to Stay’ (2022) is a collection of mixed media installations, surrounding loss, memory, and Heritage. Named using words from the song “Parting Glass”, often played at Irish funerals or Wakes, talking of a life well lived, this installation surrounds the loss of my grandfather, Sonnie.
Using Cyanotypes, a photographic printing process that uses the Sun, and my grandfather’s belongings, loss is articled universally, allowing memories and grief to be experienced in a state of peace. Grief is such an intimate emotion and yet experienced by us all. Though personal, these pieces have a mutual sensation to them, something reflected when experiencing grief itself. Bereavement often leaves us suspended in time and feeling, and though the pieces have a ghostly nature, they articulate the feeling loved ones leave behind, often an emptiness. There is a comfort in familial and sensory memories, the armchair recreating the embrace of a loved one, Shirts hung at my grandfather’s height, the slight scent still distinguishable.
They Would Wish Me One More Day to Stay reminds us of the passing of time, and the importance of grief itself. Please sit in the Armchair and using the headphones attached to the right-hand side, listen an audio about my Grandad Sonnie.