Forget Me Knot

A conceptual piece created, directed and shot by Tolu Oshodi exploring romantic love and loss taking its inspiration from the legend of the "Red String of Fate". On their own, ropes are inanimate objects that hold little meaning or significance; they only become functional when a person uses it to tie or hold something together. In the same way a piece of string on its own serves no great purpose but in the context of the red string of fate people are destined to be connected to each other one way or another - it conveys a certain hope for future encounters that are yet to happen. In this case, using rope instead of string, the concept portrays how people are left with ties to each other as a result of romantic relationships, ties we try to forget but are etched deeply into our memories. To encourage that feeling of closeness and intimacy, the cast was made up of people who were not complete strangers to each other before shooting - a cis gendered woman, two non binary people and a trans masculine person. I chose not to go down the heteronormative route as the story I’m telling is not resigned to a heteronormative audience; anyone can look at these photos and see themselves in the narrative. Anyone can feel romantic loss and longing in any way and I wanted to evoke that further by not fully shooting their faces to create an elusive air for viewers to make their own interpretation of the images.