Not Yours
(a work in progress)

Pallas Mail • June 2025
 

Not Yours is a deeply personal exploration. It reconstructs the emotional and psychological aftermath of uncovering a lifetime of fabricated origin stories, withheld truths, and unresolved deceptions. Using visual metaphor, set design, portraiture, performance, and redaction; this body of work speaks directly to the experience of learning the truth and navigating the before and after.

What began with a phone call at the age of 18 became the nucleus of a decades-long unraveling of the ‘truth’. 

This work is not a documentary—it is a reenactment of feeling and memory. I have positioned my 18-year-old self at the center of the project, the emotional catalyst from which everything else ripples. Through this lens, Not Yours interrogates my own memory and interpretations, not as a record but as a distortion, a performance, and ultimately, my origin story.

By sharing this work I’m engaging the viewer relate their own memories. 

Norman Rockwell’s ‘Gossip' became a starting point for the project. Over a year ago I was looking to map out the transmission of information and emotion through a distinct narrative. Through somewhat emotive caricature I transformed my current self using 30 years worth of hairstyles to help depict the messages and information being given, shared and taken to form a collective pictorial memory. 

I had wanted to recreate the bedroom I took the call from my biological mother. I dove deeply into Gregory Crewdson’s psychologically charged tableaux’s. This simple domestic space becomes a theatre for the inner unrest that played out for decades. 

Models were incorporated  to echo the narrative and help shift the story beyond my personal experience, inviting a broader audience into its emotional landscape.  Sets were constructed, teams were assembled and what I’m sharing now is the landing page for the next chapters and upcoming gallery dates. 

Maquete assets can be viewed here below:

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1097021146
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1097021101
& https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1097020764

Feel free to ask me any questions or share thoughts with me directly. Happy to chat and happy weekend, 

Brendan

PRESS RELEASE

Not Yours
By Brendan Meadows
Presented as part of FotoFilmic’s AFMP II Exhibition
July 5 – August 17, 2025 | FotoFilmic, Bowen Island, BC
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 5, 2–4pm

Brendan Meadows’ Not Yours is a powerful, multi-format photographic installation exploring memory, identity, and unresolved trauma. Anchored in a pivotal phone call received at age 18, the work reconstructs the emotional fallout of family rupture through a physical model of his teenage bedroom, a vivid grid of performative portraits spanning decades, and redacted texts from personal archives.

The exhibition is presented as part of the AFMP II (Annual FotoFilmic Mentoring Program), a curated showcase of emerging photographic voices from around the world. Meadows’ work blends the personal with the performative, echoing the legacy of artists like Norman Rockwell through modern psychological storytelling and fragmented identity.

“Everything I do is for my 18-year-old self” is both a mission and a memory. Through this lens, Not Yours becomes a living archive of self-repair — honest, theatrical, and unresolved.

Location: FotoFilmic, 103–555 Prometheus Pl, Bowen Island, BC
Hours: Thu–Sun, 10am–2pm, by appointment
More info: fotofilmic.com/afmp-exhibition-2024-2025

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