Shot over a decade on the Isle of Sheppey, where photographic artist Laura McCluskey was raised, Close to Home is a tender interrogation of how ties to family and place may fray and contort yet never break. The project’s narrative heart is 13 Acorn Street, the home of Laura’s paternal grandparents, which was ever central to McCluskey family life.

In 2014, Laura instinctively began documenting her grandparents, their home and Sheppey itself during each return visit. Thus she was to capture this poignant and candid testament to Jean and Pat’s last years. Her images sensitively portraying mortality’s march as echoed through a residence rich in vital memories. The subdued dilapidation of the once-vibrant 13 Acorn Street until its emptying, underscoring time’s stubborn progress, no matter how much we may long for it to slow.

Place is a further key theme. The places we call home, the tenacious hold they retain over us, which persists despite our relationship to home becoming fraught. For Laura, her love for her grandparents and a desire to mend fractured family ties anchored her to Sheppey. Yet photography was to prove her most powerful healing tool as this instinctual project became a conduit for reconciliation, solace and growth. An enduring act of love to stay Close to Home.

The book:
254 x 212mm | 160pp image section, including 90 colour plates. | 8pp text section with an afterword by Suze Olbrich. | Casebound in a Windsor cloth with an image tip-on and foil embossed title. | Printed on Gardapat 150g/m and Fedrigoni Sirio 135g/m.