I Chose the Word Sister
Mariah Barlow
‘I chose the Word Sister’ is an excerpt pulled from a school project my younger sister, Eden, had written about me a couple of years ago in school. I had only recently found out about this letter when our Mom sent me a photo of it. Eden had kept this letter tucked away, its contents filled with her perception of me, and of sisterhood.
At 13 years old, she teeters on the edge of a new phase in her life with her childlike innocence slowly but surely fading away into my own memory of her. With our 11 year age gap, we have only ever known our relationship as one with maternal and child tendencies. I take care of her, and she wants to be cared for. Throughout the process of creating this project, I’ve been able to question this dynamic, and how we will both accept a new normal in how we may interact with one another as she enters adolescence.
These images aim to capture Eden, my baby sister, my best friend, at this pivotal point in her life as she comes into her own and enters an era of self discovery. Through exploring these themes of sisterhood, coming of age, and girlhood, I also flip the perspective, allowing Eden to capture me and to share how she feels about us and about our relationship, which is something I so often forget to offer her.
Overall, this series is a time capsule for my Eden, and I can only hope she will always let me into her space as she has so selflessly done for the last several months.
Mariah Barlow
Mariah (she/her) is a visual artist currently based in Toronto, Ontario. She is in her final year of the Photography Studies (BFA) program at Toronto Metropolitan University, and will be graduating with a Minor in Communication Design. Mariah’s mediums of interest centre around analogue processes, primarily 35mm and 120mm photography. In addition to her photography projects, Mariah has also branched out into super 8 videography, which has become a main area of interest in her practice. The majority of her work is rooted within personal themes and subject matter, with family members and important people being at the core of many of her projects. She aims to create soft, intimate portraiture that is often in conjunction with text to give the viewer a closer look into her life and the people within it.