The departure from the world, whilst inevitable and natural, brings with it one of the most profound emotional challenges a person can face- grief. Lydia Goldblatt (@lydiagoldblatt) is a London based photographic artist, who over three years created the series Still Here, an intimate, yet anthropological reflection that focuses on this transitional process her parents undergo as they age.
There is a space where words are unable to express the emotional anguish that is the anticipation of losing a loved one. It is a grief that merges the past, present and future into a single overwhelming thought; it creates a liminal, distorted space in time as we prepare to move forward in life without this person. Love is a core part of grief, it is the reason for its being. Still Here stands as a poignant testament to the enduring power of this love, capturing the depths of this affection, in fragmented moments.

While the work is about the artist’s family, it is equally a means to contemplate the nature of life, and the invisible bonds of love.
The series observes the details of passage, in time and in life; intertwining the accents of the human and the natural world that connect in these reflective moments. Goldblatt's work is a sincere commentary on the cyclical nature of life, a solemn yet gently optimistic reflection. Her series alleviates part of the isolation that grief can impose, reminding us not only of the way we share grief, but the way we share life.
© Lydia Goldblatt
It is difficult to express how imminent death can be strange and confronting and yet at the same time something with which we can develop an odd sort of acquaintance, but Goldblatt conveys this well.
Goldblatt's series stands apart from other contemporary works of family self-representation by weaving together portraits of her parents with still lives and abstract compositions. As she describes it, the series serves as a concentrated meditation on mortality, time, love and loss. This rich combination of approaches creates a compelling emotional landscape, one that is soulfully observant. The work reminds its viewers of the beauty in the continuation of life, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that this life will, for all of us, come to an end. It resonates most with John Bergers notion of the image as a 'fixed post in a flowing river', forcing us to confront the balance between permanence and transience.

It engages with the shifting nature of time, and the potential of photographs to open up the realm of experience via their poetic as well as indexical reality.
Lydia Goldblatt is a London-based photographic artist, her series, and first book Still Here, is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum National Art Library. Her work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, Somerset House London, the National Museum Gdansk, the GoEun Museum of Photography, and the Felix Nussbaum Museum in Germany. Her work considers themes of belonging, transience and emotional experience, fusing the approaches of both documentary and constructed photography.
