TRAVELING WITH MY MOTHER: The Work of Photographic Memory in Mourning

At 20 years of age, my mother traveled to India by herself. It was 1990, and she was waiting to hear back from college. Getting away from this unknown, she dove into another. Both in the form of journal writing and film photography, she documented her day-to-day activities, people she encountered, thoughts and feelings along her three-month-long journey. I never asked her about this time, assuming we’d speak of it once I was older—but she passed away when I was only 15. Years later, in the spring of 2024, I discovered boxes of her photographs and travel journal, which became puzzle pieces of a story I never had the chance to hear. Through visual analysis of her photographs and reflection on her writing, this thesis explores how photography and travel intersect with memory, identity, and grief. Grounded in the work of thinkers such as Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, John Berger, and Sigmund Freud, I trace a theoretical history of travel photography, the implications of the gaze, and the psychic functions of memory. This project is both an academic inquiry and a deeply personal attempt to memorialize my mother and continue our bond.