Shared Cups of Tea (2021)
tw: miscarriage, pregnancy loss
During the summer of 2021, I was pregnant for approximately six weeks before I miscarried, and we lost our baby. It was so early that I had no ultrasound images or other physical documentation of the pregnancy. The French word ‘souvenir’ translates to ‘memory’; there was an additional grief in not having these 'souvenir' objects to signify the memory of having been briefly pregnant with our second child. I had been collecting used teabags during the pregnancy, initially for another project, and these became my documentation – my souvenir. This series consists of scans of the used teabags from cups of tea I shared with the child I never met. There is a bittersweetness to them. They act as the reminder I craved. However, especially in the way that the tea resembles blood staining, they also remind me of the grief and pain of miscarriage.
In Memory of Jude McMahan