Confessions is a joint collaboration by 5 photographers, we have chosen to present the pictures of one of them, Othello De’souza-Hartley. The source of this work comes from an astonishing story told by Charlotte Meddings.
On a Wednesday afternoon in broad daylight, my house was burgled.
When I returned from work I didn’t realise at first but then it dawned on me my laptop was gone containing all my pictures and films from pretty much the past five years, none of it was backed up.
By Thursday I had started to come to terms with the fact someone had been in the house, I began to mourn the loss of those images and films. But was grateful no-one had been hurt. The police came round to take finger prints. They dusted the entire kitchen, my four year old watched on in intrigue as they covered surfaces with a light grey powder. They found nothing but a faint footprint on the window ledge leading them to believe they climbed in through the minuet kitchen window, there was no evidence of a forced entry. They took details and said they’d be in touch.
On Friday morning, Friday the 13th at around 6am there was a panicked knock at my front door, I opened the door and in front of me stood a boy, he must have been only 14/15. He was obviously distressed and I thought maybe there had been a road accident, I asked him what was wrong, is everything OK.
He looked at me with tears streaming down his face and said…
I’ve got a confession to make about the burglary on your house on Wednesday.
Yes, I said
He held out his arm, and handed me a carrier bag containing my laptop.
He explained that we was in trouble, fell in with the wrong crowd. But went to mosque with his friend, he told his friend what he had done and his friend quite wisely explained that people work very hard for their possessions, you can’t just take something that does belong to you, and so he realised he had to return the goods.
Maybe its because I’m a mother but I felt compelled to hug him and tell him no matter how bad he thought things were, they will get better. Right there in that moment on my doorstep hugging a crying stranger, clutching a carrier bag with my digital memories at 6am, Confessions was born.
Charlotte Meddings
Curator Charlotte Meddings, selected and commissioned five London photographers to capture the essence of Confessions.
The brief was simple – take up to ten portraits including a self portrait. Each sitter must agree to confess to something they have done in their lives.
The twist – each confession is anonymous to the audience, never is the images and confession shown together, instead the viewer is invited to create their own stories, from the images and text.
Featuring the works of:
Othello De’souza-Hartley
Gu
Matt Thompson
Nicolas Laborie
Keely Mangham
Books are available to buy directly from [email protected] a percentage of the sales is also donated to the arts charity Studio Upstairs.
