New England Diary

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Voices of her dead mother

Image from the show “Intimacies of Telephony,’’ by Margaret Wagner Hart, at Kingston Gallery, Boston, through Dec. 30.

The gallery says:

“‘Intimacies of Telephony,’ an ongoing installation, started with a collection of voicemails saved on a cellphone of Margaret Wagner Hart that were the last messages left by her now deceased mother. Captured on a hot pink Razor flip phone, they were trapped there when Hart decided to update her phone service.’’


She says:

“At the time, the technology to transfer the voicemails did not exist. As I dealt with the loss of my mother, I held onto that outdated cell phone as a sort of talisman. It housed an emotional catalog of voicemails, and as long as I had the phone, I could play back the messages.’’