An artist who stalked her estranged father, even breaking into his home, is exhibiting her finds in Liverpool Open Eye Gallery.
Johanna Heldebro, who had no contact with her dad since her parents' divorce, used techniques from police surveillance photography to capture evidence of his new life.
Her work will be on display as part of the Mann Island gallery's Kinship exhibition, which opens to the public tomorrow.
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It will also include photographs, by a different artist, of women with their newborn children, taken in their own homes just hours after birth.
Kinship aims to navigate the dynamics of modern relationships through projects by seven women photographers addressing traditional ideas of how people might relate to others based on their gender, age or position within a family.
Together, they seek to open up new ways of thinking about how we express our sense of kin — as friends, family and partners.
Thomas Dukes, curator at Open Eye Gallery, said: "The way that we think about things like family, relationships and friendships is changing, and I wanted to start a conversation around that.
"I think that photography is becoming a big part of our relationships with people - every day we take images of ourselves and the people around us, and share them.
“I like the idea that closeness with people isn’t just a given, its something that needs to be nurtured, and photography has become a big part of that process — that's essentially what Kinship is about."
The projects include:
Johanna Heldebro - To Come Within Reach of You
Johanna discovered her father was living a new life in Sweden so decided to cross the Atlantic to learn more about him by taking photos of his new life, without his knowledge.
She finds this one-way process of ‘following’ an unfulfilling way of coming to know someone.
Johanna said: "More and more, photography is becoming a bigger part of our lives - it's instant, constant, and everywhere. That deserves to be explored and talked about more, and I think that Open Eye Gallery is on the same page in terms of wanting to really animate that conversation.
"The series that I'm showing as part of Kinship involves an investigation into my father's new life after the divorce of my parents. I travelled to Sweden to learn more about him, basically through surveillance photography.
"I'm interested in how we can get 'close' to people through photography, although that kind of one-sided relationship isn't really fulfilling after all."
Pixy Liao - Experimental Relationship
Pixy presents her everyday dynamic as a Chinese born woman in a relationship with a younger Japanese man.
Her photos consist of ‘experiments’ with her partner that subvert the traditional gender roles of heterosexual relationships.
Lydia Goldblatt - Still Here
Lydia also photographed her father, following him through his experience of living with dementia during the last years of his life.
Still Here also includes images of her mother going through the experience of losing someone, alongside close-up images of moments and objects that act as visual poetry.
Jenny Lewis - One Day Young
This project captures intimate portraits of women with their newborn children on the very first day of their lives together.
Jenny visited them in their homes, a bike ride away from her flat in Hackney.
The portraits share a powerful range of emotions women experience at the start of their motherhood.
Margaret Mitchell - In This Place
In an early project titled Family (1994), Margaret photographed her nieces and nephews growing up on an estate in Stirling.
In this new series begun over 20 years later, she revisits the lives of her late sister’s children, documenting their relationships against the backdrop of urban displacement and inequality that passes from generation to generation.
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Momo Okabe - Dildo
The project follows two of the artist’s partners with fluid gender identities, including a journey through gender reassignment surgery in Thailand.
Presented as a photographic family journal, running throughout the series is an immense sensitivity, compassion and acceptance.
Jemma O'Brien and Northwood Golden Years
For the past three years, Open Eye Gallery has collaborated with residents from the Northwood Golden Years group in Kirkby, alongside filmmaker Jemma O’Brien and photographer Tony Mallon.
For Kinship, Jemma O’Brien presents a new collaborative video work that reflects upon the close ties, trust and friendships formed between the group over the fifty years they have spent together and witnessed their hometown change.
Kinship is part of RISE, a year-round programme by Liverpool City Council to champion the achievements of women and celebrate underrepresented histories.
As part of this, Open Eye Gallery is seeking to address a historic gender imbalance in photography by ensuring at least 80% of the artists they work with this year are women or a gender minority.
Kinship runs from May 10 to July 7, 2019 at Open Eye Gallery.
