Reflective Encounters

“At the junction of Barking Road and Green Street in East London, the statue still stands: Bobby Moore holds the World Cup aloft, raised on the shoulders of his surrounding West Ham teammates. Erected as a celebration of local heroes, this frozen moment now carries a sense of mournfulness for an absence, the club having departed the area several years ago. Such a mournfulness is at the heart of Old Windows, in which the sole observers of the drama are the faces in the photographs which crowd the café counter amid the vintage sporting memorabilia: a father whose absence can finally be spoken about, and a son whose absence cannot be, for the time being.

The incomprehensible enormity of grief can seem to bring time to a picture-like standstill, and it only slowly regains its regular rhythm tentatively, just as bright daylight imperceptibly creeps into the golden shades of the magic hour. Solace and meaning may eventually be located in the kindnesses of those around us, and it is in an enigmatic encounter between café owner Kerri and an apparent stranger that both might find healing from their respective pasts.”

— Jonathan Bygraves