Letting Go – Reflections

On my wedding day, my dress was at the peak of its importance and function. As it sits in my wardrobe 6 years later, it feels like a dead thing. My memories of that day are captured in innumerable photographs – the only thing missing from them is the texture, the feel and weight, but these two elements – the event and the object – can never exist again as a single whole. The wedding day is over. The dress is not my marriage, so why do I retain it? As a symbol, it is redundant.

The image below is a still from a short film I made. The film takes the exploration of giving something up (and the value of the visual record) a step further to examine the moment of removal, the exertion of personal control over this removal process. The dress has served another purpose through this work. It’s an act, an experiment, a visual spectacle that fits my inquiring personality but, most importantly, it’s a letting go.

Sarah Faraday