Published as a PhotoIreland TLP Editions zine.

Published in Source Photographic Review #115, Summer 2024

13 April – 8 June 2024: Solstice Arts Centre, Meath.
‘In Conversation’ with author Emilie Pine, Thursday 23 May 2024.

Exhibited in The Darkroom, 32 Brunswick St N, Dublin D07 TWX3 20 July- 4 August 2023. The exhibition was part of the PhotoIreland festival Open Programme.

A selection of work from A Joining of Self was exhibited at Belfast Exposed Gallery as part of the MFA Photography Degree show in June/July 2023.

‘In A Joining of Self, Suella Holland stages a meeting of past and present selves in a process of healing
. . .  Instead of describing, retreating via the language of psychoanalysis outwards and back to a safe place, Holland invites me to sit with the child she meets here, and to see. Word becomes image; memory becomes thought, then line, then letter. Whisper becomes whipstitch, secret becomes declaration, pulling the thread of past into present so that it can be folded back again into the fabric of time where it belongs, if it belongs anywhere.’ — Jennifer Good, Source Photographic Review

A site-specific work exploring fragmented childhood memories, dissociation and the lasting psychological impact of abuse, the project draws on recollections of fabric, secrecy and the language of manipulation used to threaten and silence, ultimately breaking a silence that has been kept for forty years.

Challenging herself by visiting a house that is a clone of her childhood home, Suella Holland faces her own emotional turmoil and translates these feelings and memories into a visual language which enables her to express a past that she is unable to articulate in words.

Shrouded in secrecy and made to fear that no one will believe them, children keep silent about abuse. Words that were used to manipulate them echo through their minds, making most people too afraid to speak out.

Holland has recreated scenes from fragmented memories and utilised photography and stitching as a means of expression. Photographed on film with the abuser’s twin lens reflex camera she has converted the male gaze to that of the female child’s and has taken back control of the past.

A reclamation of power, A Joining of Self comes face to face with that past and strives to choose courage over fear and acceptance over criticism. This inner union is powerful as its connection brings unity and balance to both the conscious and subconscious selves.