When someone dies, we say we will try to honour their memory. But the person who has passed, isnt keeping track, they cant adovoate for themselves that the actions you say you take in honour of their memory is in fact, something they find honourable and therefore preserves an idea of their being, continues their presence in our minds. There is so much room for misintepretation, for manipulation and at its best, misinformed good intentions based on safe assumptions.
But how do we even BEGIN to honour the memory of those who are forcibly removed from us, but are still here? With the willingness to advocate for their present circumstances, but without the means, and even with the means, without the authority or position in society to be validated, acknowledged and appropriate actions taken? How do we honour the memory and life of our loved ones in prison? Both mourning and paying homage to their life before incarceration, advocating for their rights in the present and imagining their futures in a way that is equitable. There is a triple mourning taking place without the release of the grief process that comes from the resignation and finality of death.
When we pull together information about our loved ones for Eulogies, a combination of fact and anecdote, personal preference and feeling, we do our best and yet we have all been to a service where the minister...misinterpreted the information, maybe embellished and misinformed the congregation, a new impression formed from a third party. This ocurrs without the dead persons interference projected lived experience and often only with 1 or 2 close relations and a minister involved. But what about translating, preserving and honouring the oral histories of the prisoner? Where in the experience is the truth lost? Over the short phone calls where free communication becomes shaped by fear of censorship and survelliance? Over text message and email apps which are scanned by internal staff? Through criminal justice teams who misinform and protect their failing systems? or through the anger and misunderstanding and assumptions of the family members and loved ones who try to piece together the information into some sort of truth? What version of our loved one is true? The memory of the individual before incarceration? The prisoner ? Or the imagined future release? Where does the person in the cell live and how can we begin to honour the memory of them, their stories, the lines between, the things we are not allowed to ask or know? How do we find the lived experience within the institutional agenda? Do those searching for the truth to be closer to their loved ones lose themselves in the process? Do we have to mourn ourselves and our memories and imagined futures with our loved one aswell?
I'm working on a new series of work around this, a new set of Eulogies for my brother and my family.
I hope to share more of it soon and it will likely start with writing and expand into community engagement and performance installation work, but for now, an excerpt:
Are you a family member?
‘Are you a family member?’, an unknown caller and a stranger starts their script, performs the monologue with conviction, descriptions of a scene I didn't witness, dragged into existence with the turn of his car just a second too quick, and with speed, a whisper from my depths took breathe, and screamed and screamed.
Strung up, wrapped and choking, afraid to look down, the line grew tighter, tip toes clinging to unknown edges, ledges where the mind stuttered to form a conclusion, but my pulse understood the intrusion; ‘no way out’.
And before we can recover from the shock, the voice pushes for causes of his fate which I can relate and baits the trap with sincerity, conflates our loose tongues with keeping him safe and we mistake her ambush of our vulnerability for empathy.
We are told they will keep us informed, assured that nothing is decided, but days pass with no updates, and with each phone call her mask slips and exposes the snake, of a system where conviction gives cause for promotion. And as her skin sheds, our words are reshaped to make claims of his intent, bent on receiving the honours for her Investigations, we were never asked to confirm if her summations were a true reflection of our accounts.
‘Are you a family member?’, and with this single question, a surrender, to our ties with the offender that we are bound. And reaching through the phone and shoving rope deep inside our throats, all there was left to do, was balance on the stool and hope, hope it breaks when kicked away by his weight and fate offers us a clean break. And the ground.
Hannah Taylor 2024
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