Melinda Reyes

winslow gray road and Conversations with you

My father’s body was discovered on Winslow Gray Road on the southern coast of Cape Cod. It was November 30th, 2021 at 7:30 a.m. It is estimated that he was struck, killed, and left to die at 5:02 p.m. the prior evening. It was 26 degrees Fahrenheit and he was a few houses away from his own. No suspect has ever been found.

This life-changing event has altered the lens through which I view the world, shifting my perceptions of safety and justice as I attempt to make sense of what remains when a daughter loses her father in such a violent, stark way.

In the aftermath of my father’s unsolved homicide, I began a two-part body of work -Winslow Gray Road and Conversations with you - that explores the intersection of grief, evidence, and love. My work arises from an unrelenting need to understand and give form to loss. Over the past 4 years, my practice of photography (and sculpture) has become an act of endurance and reclamation, where creation itself restores a sense of agency to a survivor’s story.

In Winslow Gray Road, I approach the site of his death as daughter, investigator, and artist. I gathered and reconfigured remnants from the crime scene - collecting dirt, gravel, pine needles, a shred of his clothing, and the orange fragments of a headlight shattered on impact. I gently cast the tire tracks as I sought to trace patterns to lead me to the person responsible. Acts of grief blurred into forensic inquiry. Each object holds the dual wieght of truth and memory, forming a dialogue between what is known and what remains a mystery. Within the process, I found found myself gravitating beyond the two-dimensional and began repurposing remnants and creating sculptures that speak to the weight and scale of the burden I have been carrying.

In the immediate wake of his death, I moved between two worlds as I quietly walked back and forth from the stark site of his death to the comfort of his home. I found myself searching for him, each room empty and exactly as he left it. I felt an intense pull to stay there, finding solace in his belongings and the lingering scents.

Conversations with you turns inward, photographing his home as if time had paused inside it. These images become a quiet exchange between presence and absence, giving form to what was once unspeakable.

Together, these works chart my ongoing commitment to using photography as a means of witnessing, healing, and survival - a sustained devotion to transforming trauma into a visual language when words are not enough.

Photographer’s Statement: There were over 21,000 homicides in the U.S. the year my father was killed and of that 1,781 were hit and run fatalities - 90% of which go unsolved. In Massachusetts alone, at least 23 fatal hit-and-run cases remain unsolved since 2011.” This grueling absence of resolution leaves families and communities like mine suspended in grief, unable to fully move on.

Our news has become saturated with national and global atrocities and we have unintentionally become more desensitized and indifferent to news of a smaller scale and only that which directly touches our lives. Leaving those who personally experience homicide feeling isolated. This project is dedicated to the 23 individuals and their families in Massachusetts whose lives were lost and their homicide still remains unsolved.

Description of images/ Sculptures:

“The cast” - a cast of one of the tire tracks filled with police issued fingerprint powder and a crime scene ruler for scale.

“Evidence you existed” - Detectives allowed me to come and photograph the evidence bags in a secure room in the police department. The images in itself evidence, but in their stark background, composition, and closeness they become evidence of the struggle between intimacy and detachment that occurred during my interaction with them. Full scale: 64” x 64”

“The burden I carry, the burden I share” - 72” black circular metal structure with 8 industrial hanging scales painted black. 8 plain paper bags designed to replicate police evidence bags. Each bag’s printed text is part of a letter to my father. Binder clips holding the bags match those the police use. Bags printed on a home Epson printer.

“Suspended” - 16 months after my father’s death, the words no one wants to hear. No more leads, nothing to follow. The gravity of those words hitting with blunt force, then hanging there in the silence. 4’ x 3’ x 2’ plexiglass box with a lid (not shown here) - within the box are pieces of police tape found at the crime scene and taped together by scotch tape. Held by an invisible thread.

“If I write your name, will it make it true” - 4’ x 3’ cross with twine replicating that used for his memorial. Tree bark 5’ x 2’ - the same bark of the tree in which the cross hung.

“Reverence” - a 20” x 32” pillow hand sewn satin fabric with the interior including batting gently layered with leaves, pine needles, feathers, and ashes. The center of the pillow contains sifted dirt and his ashes that equal the weight of an actual male’s head. It is both a contemplative and interactive piece as one is invited to pick it up and experience the weight, textures, and scents that exist within it. It seeks to honor my father by creating a new narrative, a new resting place, one that is informed by love.

“Conversations with you”