Beachy Head in south east England is known for its quintessential English scenery - a place where undulating pastures meet precipitous, white chalk cliffs but is also a well-known location for suicide attempts with a history dating back to the 1600s. Since 1965, over 500 people have taken their lives and it is estimated that between 70 - 100 people make an attempt every year. It is has become the deadliest cliff in the world and the third most popular suicide spot after Japan's Aokigahara Woods and San Fransisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Over the last year and a half, I have been exploring this stretch of coastline for the photographic project titled Beachy Head. I have been looking at the metaphors and traces of suicide subtly embedded within this landscape, developing a body of work that attempts to create a sensitive dialogue with the difficult issue of suicide.

Since the death of Princess Diana, the display of public grief has become more popular in the UK and over the last few years, I have noticed bouquets of flowers, piles of stones, crosses and soft toys increasingly being placed along the Beachy Head headland. These shrines serve as a response to the tragedy and as a memorial to the suicide victims that have jumped off the Beachy Head cliff face. I realized that not only do these shrines stand alone at the intersection of both private memory and public grief but they are also symbolic of human fragility, triggering our own unconscious fears surrounding death.

The first series of the photographic project titled In Memory Of... documents the floral memorials from day through to night, exploring notions of memory, loss and death. Interspersed with this series are photographs of the Beachy Head landscape, titled Backdrop (ongoing). The occasional stretch of wire fence, dried out weather beaten foliage and sweeping vistas, help establish a sense of the backdrop to this beautiful yet disturbing landscape, where beauty and death extraordinarily collide.

The second series of the project titled Liminal (ongoing) are reconstructions based around research of local newspaper articles that regularly report the Beachy Head suicides. These articles often state the typical possessions suicide victims leave behind on the cliff face before they jump. The reconstructions explore the in-between,transitional,liminal state of the elusive moments between life and death.

The images were captured with a medium format film 67 camera and 54 large format camera.