ABSTRACT
A few years ago I started the project of digitising my slides. Sometimes, an unexpected image emerged; when two pieces of film were caught in the machine, they recorded as a single picture. I start this chapter with one such image made from two photographs. In the first, children can be seen standing inside a house by a bed. In the second, the room is empty. Together, this layered image provides a starting point to explore the idea that in the households that I describe there is a prevailing sense that people are always present, even in their physical absence. Here, traces from different times and places live alongside people’s physical presence in a variety of different forms.
