Super 8 B&W film. 3mins. Hand processed with sound.

 

Reviresco translates from Latin as: to grow green again; to grow strong or young again.

It is the motto of the Clan McEwan, who lost their modest lands on the west coast of Scotland in the late 15th century.

 

In May 2013 my mother, Wilma McEwan, died following a precipitous decline in health. I was completely unprepared, as despite being 80 years old, she was very active. As my father died in 1999, this event signalled another ending - as her house, which I considered my home, and base, in Scotland, had to be sold.  2 years later, I travelled to Scotland to search for the remains of ‘Castle McEwan’, which are to be found on a remote rocky outcrop on the banks of Loch Fyne, on the west coast. There, I scattered some of my mother’s ashes, and signed the McEwan clan book I discovered in the nearby Kilfinnan hotel, before heading to Edinburgh to meet my younger daughter.

I travelled alone on this trip, which felt like a pilgrimage: a way to somehow locate myself in a scheme of things I cannot understand.

 

I documented this trip with a Super 8 camera and later added a sound track which includes a voiceover of me speaking backwards: perhaps an attempt to both turn back time and amplify my struggle to find meaningful words to convey my sense of loss.