28 9 / 2011
Died three years ago (2010)
Miranda Hutton’s Rooms Project is a series of photos of dead children’s rooms. It’s pretty heavy stuff, so we rang her up to find out how she copes taking these poignant “portraits”.
VICE: Hi Miranda! How did your Rooms Project come about?
Miranda Hutton: Well, a long time ago when I was about 17 I lost a friend to cancer. And her parents were always very keen on us, her friends, to still come into the house even after she passed and go up to her room. That room was sort of a significant thing in our lives; we used to hang out there quite often. Then a while later my mother died. So, I guess it was because I lost loved ones that I began to contemplate the significance that spaces and objects gain once people leave.
That’s a rational way of dealing with loss. Did you start taking pictures of your friend’s room right after she died?
No, she passed almost 20 years ago, but I started taking the pictures in about 2003-2004.Didn’t the room change a lot during those years in-between?
Actually, not so much. Just before she went to the hospital and died, she re-arranged the entire room and made it all tidy – it always was a complete mess – so the mum thought that this was how her daughter wanted her room to be left. They didn’t dust it for ages. So much so, that she would pick up a pot, and the dust around it would tell her exactly where to put the pot back down again.
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