Permissions, photographer Emma Hardy's first monograph, is a tender document of motherhood and childhood, love and longing, and leaving home. The images have been gathered and distilled from Hardy's personal archive and span twenty years. An exhibition of the project accompanied the book's publication, running from 1 December to 27 January at 10 14 Gallery, London.
 
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The photographs show moments of recognisable domestic life interspersed with more idyllic scenes. They reveal Hardy's attempts to balance her creative professional life with motherhood, watching her children grow and change alongside a maturing relationship with her own mother. The book is divided into chapters, each introduced by a large-format still life of native flowers, made as a farewell during the final spring spent in the family home. As the book progresses, Hardy's children become increasingly independent and begin venturing beyond the frame. The project reached a natural conclusion when the family moved away.
 
 
 
“The world brings colours to the child and the child arranges them, cuts them into shapes, learns the names of the shapes and says them for the first time. Animals, fruit, leaves, water... Of course, most of these colours and shapes are not supplied by the world, abstract and indistinct, but by the mother... Understanding the mother's presence in the child's mind is not unlike looking at a family album: one person, the photographer, is usually absent, yet integral not only to the making of the photograph but also to the scene, to life itself.” — Alice Zoo, from the essay in the book.