‘The confidantes (i–xvi)’ is a series of embroidered textile objects presented as photographs. It is a documentation of my late father’s handkerchiefs, hand stitched in a patterned grid and backed with remnant fabric, commenced in 2018, completed in 2024. The backings are remnants of cloths dyed with funeral flowers during my residency at Tender Funerals, Port Kembla. These cloths were used in their mortuary for people who came without family or who died in difficult circumstances, in a final act of care.

Working closely with photographer Frances Mocnik, I flooded the objects with light. Three layers are revealed at once – the handkerchief, the dyed cloth behind and the internal space where beginnings and ends of threads reside. The work is a gesture of shared remembering.

From left to right, top to bottom: The typewriter; Relentless work and whiteness; The sea will be rough; This change of heart; Fourteen footstools; Snakes and ladders; A kinder, fairer world; Nothing to mourn; Hold you close; World of silence; To swim; Inamorata; Sanctuary/ survivor; First language; Mirage; Abhi dada baba.