Spanning ten years on the Isle of Sheppey, where photographic artist Laura McCluskey grew up, Close to Home is a tender meditation on belonging, memory, and the quiet resilience of family bonds. At its core lies 13 Acorn Street—the home of McCluskey’s paternal grandparents—once the gravitational centre of her family’s life.
In 2014, Laura began photographing her grandparents, their house, and the surrounding landscape during each return visit. What began as an instinctive act of observation evolved into a moving chronicle of Jean and Pat’s final years—a portrait of love and loss rendered through the textures of domestic space. Her images trace the gentle decline of a once-bustling home, where the fading wallpaper and emptied rooms echo the passing of time and the persistence of memory.
Equally central is the idea of place: the way landscapes of origin cling to us, even when our ties to them grow complicated. For McCluskey, Sheppey embodies both affection and fracture—a geography of return shaped by longing and reconciliation. Through the process of photographing, she found a way to bridge distance, to heal, and to honor what remains. Close to Home stands as a quiet act of love and repair, a testament to how looking closely can bring us back to where we began.