Nesting

Heather Tooth has been creating “nests” for several years and I have been taking photographs of the. These nests are made from collections of materials that individually represent and interpret a number of Heather’s friends and family, their stories and characters, important events, and above all, Heather’s own connection to things. I started out simply documenting the nests, as most were given away, and being fairly fragile, would eventually disappear. I have always seen the nests as works of art, both because of their beauty and the artistic processes that Heather uses to create them. However, it was 2 years after taking the shots as a way of recording the nests that I began to become absorbed in the images as photographs, and seeing the photographic images as artworks in their own right. In many ways, the images can be seen along the lines of still life traditions, but the objects are fantastical. I love the way that they are both familiar and strange. I love the stories of how the materials have been collected and how they symbolise the life that the nest represents. As a photographer, I feel I have only offered to present them in a different version, a medium that I understand, and one that will spread the appreciation of Heather’s gifts to a different audience.

Victoria Garnons-Williams