THE ACT OF CARE

This project has been exhibited at the Bill of Health (2023) exhibition at the Lethaby Gallery in London, the WHO CARES? (2024) exhibition at the Fringe Arts Festival in Bath, and in the digital exhibition ‘Women by Women’ (2025) online at the SE Center for Photography. It is also currently featured on PHMuseum.

In July 2021, my grandmother Sally had a stroke. I was one of her full-time caregivers already at this point, as her vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s were seriously deteriorating her ability to manage with just my grandfather. In an incredibly short period, we went from just simply helping her shower and get up the stairs to her being bedridden and unable to feed herself.

Although my aunt, my grandfather, and I remained her primary carers, this project takes a look at the wider effect of caregiving on our whole family, and how we had to adapt our lives around her medical needs. Everything as we knew it changed.

This long-form documentary was made from July 2021 until July 2024 and is a brief selection of thousands of photographs I took of my family in that period.

I want to use this project to show all sides of family caregiving because despite being physically exhausting and mentally draining, it still had many moments of joy. It still bonded us as a family, even as it caused strains in our relationships. I think it is also important to highlight the gender disparity in caregiving between men and women that was apparent even in our own fairly modern family. The heavy portion of the physical act of care and the emotional labour often fell upon me, my aunts, and my sister.

As a recent graduate, I hope the project can start a conversation about students and caregiving. When I started my MA in September of 2021, the government cut out my access to Carer’s Allowance, despite still caring well over the minimum hours required to receive the funding, because I was in full-time study.

The final thread of this story is the saddest for me - the slow loss of my grandfather's love of his life. Watching him sink into more and more heartbreak every time more of the pieces of who she was disappeared to Alzheimer's was one of the hardest things I've ever had to witness in my life. Dementia is a cruel disease and is often called the longest goodbye for how drawn out it becomes. Our grief started over a decade before my grandmother passed away.

My grandfather reading the newspaper to my grandmother, an act of love as much as care.

My grandmother’s stroke left her eventually unable to hold and lift cutlery with food to her mouth.

My grandparents watching TV, with my grandmother in her hospital bed, surrounded by all of her care paraphernalia.

My sister giving my grandmother a haircut - she did this every single time she came back down to Kent on a break from her studies all the way up in Newcastle.

Whenever I wasn't tending to Granny, I kept Grandpa distracted with a game of Scrabble. I didn't really have time for myself during this period of my life.

My grandfather saying goodnight to my grandmother. At this point, he was caring for her whilst waiting for a hip operation as his hip replacement had completely broken.

Sundowning is common in dementia patients, where they are awake in the night often shouting in confusion. I would go down and try to soothe her, which left me with getting very little sleep.

At many Christmases that I saw my grandparents as a child, they used to take me to see the Nutcracker ballet. I bought it and put it on at Christmas on my laptop so that she could still see it.

Christmas day - time for a family quiz! We made sure to include my grandmother in a team.

My aunt comforts my grandfather, who often becomes overwhelmed by the situation.

A regular family meal at my grandparents. My sister is in the foreground with my grandmother, as my brother and stepfather share a funny moment.

My mother with her mother. Every time she goes over, she says goodbye just in case it’s the last time that she sees her. My mother was with her when she passed.

My grandmother passed away in the summer of 2024. Even though it was sad, we were relieved that she was no longer in pain after so long.

The day of my grandmother’s cremation, at dinner after the service.

My mother and aunt comfort each other on the day we scattered my grandmother's ashes, in the woods by the house where they were raised.

It takes my grandfather until Easter 2024 to be able to scatter the ashes, and say farewell to Sally Nöel Whitestone (née Wainwright).

The Act of Care

THE ACT OF CARE