SEAN GALLAGHER

In 2024, I was standing on stage in a theater in the heart of NYC when I received a call that my mother - whilst in the midst of treatment for her third recurrence of cancer - had had a pretty serious stroke and was in the ER awaiting admittance into the hospital. I had to leave the stage, run out to where my car lives, pack it, and then drive up to north eastern Connecticut, eventually staying for the better part of three months. 

Upon some further testing, it was discovered that that was in fact the second stroke she'd had, along with a heart attack. She was pretty heavily affected, and due to the usual health care situation in the US, the hospital was pretty eager to bounce her out of there, so I was forced to take her home while she was still in pretty rough shape. The first few weeks I didn't really feel safe even leaving her alone while I ran to get her seemingly endless medications or to go grocery shopping, when initially I could leave the room and come back to find her with food all over her self, the furniture, and the floor.

Luckily, as I was hastily packing it occurred to me that I was probably going to be up there for a while, and I should bring my cameras with me. Since I'm sort of always in a state where I'm shooting my father's tools, there's already sort of a basic studio up there...lights, stands, some white plexiglas. I added some stuff so I could shoot video and threw in some additional lights to be able to have a couple different setups in one room.