At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, artist Katherine Hubbard began to notice changes in her mother, Antonette Berger, who was then living alone in Philadelphia. What started as small concerns crystallised as pandemic restrictions eased and Hubbard went to stay with her mother; over the next five years she photographed Berger at home as her memory and day-to-day functioning declined.
Documenting decline
Berger was eventually diagnosed with LATE, limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a condition that produces symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s but generally progresses more slowly. Hubbard has described the diagnostic process as “painful, drawn-out and confusing,” and said it brought “so much grief, so much loss” as she watched the changes unfold. She spoke about the project on Zoom from New York.
Making the images
The series includes closely observed domestic scenes and a set of more confrontational works in which Hubbard persuaded her mother to make nude body prints. Recalling that collaboration, Hubbard said: "We got naked and covered ourselves in Vaseline," a practical step, she explained, in order to create direct imprints of the body. The photographs and body prints record an intimate, sometimes stark, account of ageing and the shifting boundaries between subject and maker.
Framing care and intimacy
Hubbard's work traces the overlap between caregiving and artistic practice, raising questions about memory, agency and the ways families bear witness to decline. She has spoken about photographing her mother as both a practical act of documentation and a means of attending to a changing relationship. The series, made over years of close daily contact, stands as a sustained visual record of illness and intimacy as the family navigated diagnosis and loss.