Lisa Jayne Cramer

I married at 22 years of age. Sixteen years later, after surviving several failed IVF attempts, the dream finally collapsed. At the age of 40, I had to let go of the child I had imagined, and the often-painful road towards acceptance began.

It wasn’t easy for many years, particularly while watching other couples raise their children with what appeared to be such ease. Grant and I were not only grieving the absence of a child, but also the future and the family we had imagined together.

We learned together to live in the presence of absence. Through this often-painful process, something beautiful emerged between us.

These photographs move beyond grief without leaving it behind. Through analogue photography, performance and handmade forms, we explore the tenderness, absurdity and humour within our relationship. We hold, interrupt and merge with one another. Our bodies become playful, strange and sometimes almost inseparable.

Moving forwards does not mean forgetting or replacing what was lost. It means turning towards the life we have made together and recognising the powerful love that has grown within it.

Grief became a gift that, by sharing our story, reveals a transcendent love. Perhaps the flower was never only the child we imagined. Perhaps we were the flower all along.