After 53 years of family memories, photographer Kathleen Holloway faced a profound question about the meaning of home when her aging mother decided to sell their family house. The sale prompted an artistic exploration that would become a deeply personal photography project examining how physical spaces hold emotional significance and family history.
The months-long process of clearing out furniture, decorations, and countless items accumulated over more than five decades left Holloway standing in empty rooms that still seemed filled with the presence of family history. She described the remaining memories as "ghosts that refused to be driven out," with each room speaking to her of endless recollections from a lifetime spent within those walls.
The house had served as the backdrop for all of life's major moments for Holloway's family of six. It was where her parents raised four children, celebrating birthdays and graduations together. The refrigerator had proudly displayed school awards and crayon drawings over the years, while the hallways echoed with the sound of doors being slammed by teenagers asserting their independence. Most significantly, it was where Holloway took her first steps as a child and where her father drew his last breath.
When the house officially belonged to another family, Holloway grappled with a disorienting sense of displacement. She described the experience as feeling like "the pin in the map of my life had been pulled out and the threads that connect me to this place, that had linked me to many pathways in my life, all fell away from this spot." The loss of her childhood home meant losing what she considered her center point and safe harbor during life's storms.
For Holloway, the family home had represented far more than just a place to live—it served as her refuge for celebrating triumphs and healing from failures. It was a place of respite where she could gather strength before facing the world again, and a sanctuary for mending broken hearts and processing life's disappointments. Without this physical anchor, she found herself questioning where home truly exists.
In her reflection on the loss, Holloway emphasized that a house transcends its function as mere shelter. She described it as "the silent member of the family" that requires love and care like another child, while simultaneously serving as a parent that surrounds its inhabitants with a warm embrace. The house had become a repository for family memories that remained "like projections on the wall," though their vibrant colors had grown pale and their sharp focus had softened with the passage of time.
To capture and convey these complex emotions about home and belonging, Holloway created a photography series documenting each room of the house with projections of family photographs. Most of these images had been taken by her father throughout the years, adding another layer of personal history to the artistic project. Her technical approach required using only natural light combined with light from the projector, employing slow shutter speeds to achieve the proper balance in her exposures.
The photographer made deliberate artistic choices to preserve evidence of the home's lived-in history. She chose to include random picture hooks still embedded in the walls, visible cracks in the plaster, and a solitary broom—all serving as tangible proof that life had once flourished within these spaces. These details helped communicate the authentic story of a family home transitioning from a place of active daily life to an empty shell awaiting new occupants.
Through this deeply personal artistic endeavor, Holloway came to understand that while letting go of the physical structure was necessary, the emotional connection to home would remain with her permanently, "like a sliver of wood nestled under the skin." Her photography project serves as both a preservation of family history and an exploration of how we define home when the physical spaces that shaped us are no longer accessible.
