Book Review of Tulip by Celine Marchbank

04/05/16

Tulip

By Celine Marchbank

Hardback, 152 pages

ISBN 978-1-907893-87-2

Published by Dewi Lewis Publishing

Since the age of 16, my room has scarcely ever been without a vase of flowers. It began when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Throughout my treatment – even when I was in an isolation ward and not allowed them – people would send me beautiful bouquets. Their vivid colours and sweet scents cheered up the room, but, as they began to fade, the omen of impending death became too prescient and they had to be replaced by fresh specimens, full of life and renewed hope. And so the cycle goes on. 20 years later. I survived. The flowers die, but new ones take their place and accompany me on my journey.

For Sue Miles, flowers also played a significant role in her cancer journey. Unfortunately, unlike me, she did not survive. Her stage 4 lung cancer had already spread throughout her body by the time of diagnosis. But her daughter, documentary photographer Celine Marchbank, made it her project – their shared project, in fact – to capture on camera the last years of Sue’s life. An edited compilation has now been published by Dewi Lewis Publishing as the beautiful visual memoir, Tulip. “This was obviously a very painful time for me, but I always felt it was important to record it in some way,” writes Marchbank in the foreword. “I’m a documentary photographer after all and so, more than ever, I felt the need to record everything, like some kind of magpie collecting thoughts and moments rather than shiny things.”

Read the full review here