'So Cheerio For Now' (2016), Taken from the 'Letters Home' project
- Film and Video
- Photography
- Writing and Text-Based Art
- Personal Narratives & Identity
- Memory
- Family
- Home
- Isle Of Wight
- Letters
- Snapshots
- Family Album
- Sea
- Journeys
- Autobiography
- Archive
- Artist Film
- Fine Art Photography
Dimensions
7 mins
Digital video projection, 7 mins
Voiceover: Sally Waterman
Voiceover script derived from 'Letters Home by Sylvia Plath: Correspondence 1950-1963' and 'The Journals of Sylvia Plath'
Typed Letters received from Ivy and George Baker
The 'Letters Home' project (2015-16) considers the generational difference in modes of communication, reflecting on the role of analogue photography and traditional letter writing through a re-staging of the self as a student in the early 1990’s. 'So Cheerio For Now' (2016) dwells on the letters she received from her grandparent’s whilst she was away from home. Their written words of endearment are contrasted with her own pensive reflections in the accompanying voiceover that traces an emotional journey. This autobiographical narrative employs edited extracts from the diaries and letters of the poet, Sylvia Plath, whilst she was at Smith College in the early 1950’s, which mirrors Waterman’s own experiences. Footage of the catamaran journey leaving the Isle of Wight, where Waterman grew up, captured through the changing seasons, is intercut with representational shots of ‘home’ to embody her recalled insecurities and ambitions.