Published by Overlapse in 2021, Will Harris’s You Can Call Me Nana is a poignant photographic memoir exploring memory, aging, and filial connection. The project centers on Harris’s grandmother, Evelyn, during her later years as she lived with progressive dementia. As her cognitive recall dissolved, the traditional boundaries between her lived past and imagined narrative blurred, reshaping the dynamic between grandson and grandmother into that of an unfamiliar yet intimate acquaintance.

Rather than presenting a conventional documentary record, Harris constructs a layered, multi-textured visual dialogue. The 96-page volume combines contemporary photographs taken inside the multi-generational family home in Pennsylvania with altered imagery, archival family pictures, collage, and transcripts of touching, disorienting dialogues with Nana. This interplay of disparate visual forms reconstructs the gaps left by fading recollections, balancing haunting emotional resonance with moments of unexpected lightness.

For collectors of contemporary photobooks and biographical narratives, You Can Call Me Nana represents an inventive exploration of family archives and grief. Harris transforms an intensely private family experience into an evocative contemplation on how photography can bridge the fractures of cognitive loss, making it a compelling addition to any focused library of narrative photobooks.