©Rachel Nixon, “Just Married,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024, Maggie Victoria married Frank Sellers in Chorley, Lancashire, north-west England, in the midst of World War I. Although we have their marriage certificate recording this fact, there are no wedding photos; these images mark their engagement. Certificates were validated with an actual stamp.

We would like to thank everyone who submitted to the inaugural Lenscratch Art + History Competition. We were impressed by the enormous number of compelling bodies of work, making it challenging to select just five outstanding projects. History and Art have been deeply intertwined for centuries. The winning projects we are featuring this week had a clear connection to history—exploring this relationship from personal, familial, and community viewpoints, extending to the history of places and countries, and even delving into mysteries and myths. Each image kept us wanting to discover more about the past, how it impacts the present, and—ultimately—the future.

Jeanine Michna-Bales and Sandy Sugawara

Rachel Nixon is a British-Canadian fine art photographer—and former journalist—based in Vancouver. “The Garden of Maggie Victoria” is an intriguing mystery about her great grandmother, who was almost erased from family history, and the lengths Nixon went through to ensure Maggie Victoria would be remembered.

©Rachel Nixon, “Unfurling,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024. There are few images of Maggie Victoria before her marriage. Those we do have depict an upstanding young woman just after the turn of the 20th Century. A “tailoress”, she embroidered this tablecloth with the names of friends and family, surrounding her own maiden name. The portrait was made at a local studio for her 21st birthday.

©Rachel Nixon, “New Life,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024. After their marriage in 1915, Maggie Victoria and Frank went on to have two daughters and a son. On the left is one of the christening dresses passed down the generations—I believe I wore this myself. On the right, a “baby” brooch bequeathed by my great-grandmother.

What drew you to the topic of your Art + History body of work?

During a quiet moment in the pandemic, we came across my long-forgotten great-grandmother Maggie Victoria in a cache of old family photos. After a fast-moving illness, she died at an early age in 1943 and was barely mentioned for decades, including by her own children. As one of her great-grandchildren, I was compelled to act after realizing her life story had been inadvertently erased. I felt driven to combine these archive images with my own contemporary photographs, crafting collages to share a dialogue with this woman and restore her forgotten story.

©Rachel Nixon, “Fondest Love From Mother,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024. I was surprised to find this playful mid-1920s image of my great-grandmother blowing bubbles with two of her three children. “Fondest love from Mother” was how Maggie Victoria signed letters to her eldest daughter.

©Rachel Nixon, “Flowers in the Sand,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022- 2024. Unusually for this series, we think the old photo was made by Maggie Victoria herself and entered in a photography competition, since her name and address were handwritten on the back. Those details are now part of the image I made at sunset on the beach in Vancouver, bottom right. Pictured are my grandmother and great uncle, her second and third children.

What impact, if any, do you think this project has had or will have?

The connection I’ve had with complete strangers has been one of the most rewarding outcomes of this project. Bringing Maggie Victoria’s story to life has been a catalyst for others to generously share deeply personal experiences of mysterious or forgotten ancestors. They have questions about family members who have disappeared, had undeserved reputations, or, indeed, died unexpectedly. Memory, grief, family, and heritage are subjects we can all relate to in some way.

©Rachel Nixon, “If We Had Met,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024. Imagining a scenario where my great-grandmother and I might have met and bonded over the family love of photography. It features five-year-old me with my toy camera, interrupting Maggie Victoria showing two of her children a lantern slide. The text, extracted from one of her letters, reads: “The photographic rambles begin to-morrow.”

©Rachel Nixon, “Changing Tides,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024. Two images of Maggie Victoria on the same day at the seaside by her husband Frank, a keen amateur photographer. This was a pivotal point in her adult life—looking back to happier times, and ahead to troubles personal and political. I was puzzled as to why one of the photos would be torn and folded — until my mother pointed out someone likely kept it in their wallet.

Artist Statement
“The Garden of Maggie Victoria” explores memory and female representation through the story of my great-grandmother, forgotten within my family after her premature death in 1943. I first learned about Maggie Victoria in 2022 as I scoured our family archives. She emerged from photos captured by her husband—my great-grandfather Frank—a keen amateur photographer in northern England. Wanting to revive my great-grandmother’s legacy and connect with her across the decades, I combined those images, letters and other found materials with my own photographs made in Vancouver, Canada.

Following a fast-moving illness, Maggie Victoria took her last breath during wartime, aged only 56. Frank quickly remarried, and no one mentioned her after that—not even her children. Her story was erased for decades, but I got to know this woman through the materials left behind.

Many of Frank’s photos show her in domestic settings. This series reworks scans of those analog images with my digital photographs tracking the changing seasons. Through these collages, I aim to render Maggie Victoria visible and question the male gaze cementing her role.

Letters written close to her death give a hard-to-read insight into the last weeks of a woman dedicated to her family. Fragments of those letters are now integrated into the collages. I have sought to construct new narratives from old stories. In discussing this project, strangers have shared familial tales of loss, mystery or secrecy. The series invites us to consider issues of heritage, grief and passing time that affect us all.

©Rachel Nixon, “A Slow Speed,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024. Maggie Victoria was proud of the garden she and her husband created at their Lancashire home. In a 1943 letter to Gladys, her eldest daughter, we see the first signs of her failing health—just a month before her death. She writes of her speed working in the garden being only “a slow one to-day.”

©Rachel Nixon, “A Capable Woman,” from the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024. This photo of Maggie Victoria ironing is the first image I ever saw of her. Writing to his eldest daughter, Frank expresses alarm that his wife insists on keeping house despite her illness. He writes: “For a capable woman, she has very little idea of giving up her household work, she wants to order + plan + thinks nobody else can do it just right as if it matters one iota.”

Rachel Nixon is a British-Canadian fine art photographer and former journalist—based in Vancouver. Having lived and worked across continents and cultures, Rachel explores issues such as personal heritage, womanhood, grief, and memory.

She has received accolades including four Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for female artists, and has twice been named among Dodho Magazine’s top 100 fine art photographers. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Head On Photo Festival in Australia, and the Royal Photographic Society in the UK.

In 2019, Rachel graduated with honours from the VanArts professional photography program. Before committing full-time to visual art, she had a 20-year career as a journalist and news executive for organizations including the BBC and CBC, where she developed and ran digital news services that reached millions.

Rachel also brings her editorial and photographic experience to her volunteer role as Editor of WE ARE Magazine, the publication of the RPS Women in Photography group.

Rachel holds a first class honours degree from the University of Oxford in Modern Languages and Literature. Her international experience brings with it a unique perspective on the questions of identity, place and belonging, and the connections we share despite our polarized times.

Instagram: @rachelnixon

©Rachel Nixon, From the series “The Garden of Maggie Victoria,” 2022 – 2024, “We Take Too Much From Mothers”—“I am afraid my Dear that we take too much from mothers, take too much for granted and allow them to work too hard.” From a letter by Uncle John in Australia to my grandmother on learning of the tragic death of her mother Maggie Victoria—his sister and my great-grandmother. Maggie Victoria is seen standing in her living room with some of her grown children—yet removed in anticipation of her absence.