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Memory - Blog Posts
Celina Vleugels
How Can I become You series, 2019, Acrylic and embroidery on different fabrics
To the Temple of Childhood Memories, 2021, jacquard piece of an oil pastel drawing, wool and linen, 120 x 170 cm unique
Even when the season changes, you will always be rememembered. 2020, Industrial weaving combined with hand embroidery pieces 128cm x 145cm
Emma Parker
“My work explores the darker and often hidden aspects of being human: fear, shame, abandonment, despair and the broken – with an occasional twist of humour added for sanity. I use discarded and worn materials in my work and see the act of making with them as a process of transformation and salvaging of the broken self."
“The use of thread and stitch helps me make connections and piece the broken together whilst the repetitive nature of hand sewing is a soothing rhythm, which nurtures and helps mend. In my work I often include fragments of narratives or imagery that may tell only part of a story, leaving it up to the viewer to find their own ending.”
JoAnne Lobotsky
The work is based on a fragment of an idea and then developed intuitively and organically during the process. My work is autobiographical in that I try to express the feeling I have of the time and place I grew up in. Things being reused and repurposed as well as things being jerry-rigged were typical on a small mid-century farm. Imperfection, abjectness and roughness coinciding with beauty and a kind of humble elegance are my main goals. I use mostly scraps of fabric that have a history of use by other people and there is sometimes damage from wear or stains that I embrace. Other types of materials are used that suggest fur, bark or vegetation. I feel that my approach to this work which involves imperfection and roughness is also in some way a rebellion against our class system and economic entitlement and strives to become accepted on its own terms within its own limitations. My work has roots in the Arte Povera movement in the commonplace and worn materials I use which present a challenge to established notions of value and propriety.
What Remains, 2019, Canvas, acrylic, fabric, thread, wood, feather, bleach, paper, clothes pin, antique nails on canvas, 23 X 34.5"
Where I'm From, 2019, Canvas, fabric, embroidery, cheesecloth, micaceous iron oxide, feathers, faux fur, tatting, antique buttons. Some areas are lightly stuffed. 23 X 58 X .5"
Alexa Meyerman
10:25 AM, inkjet : transparency film, 15 x 20 x 15 cm, 2010
This work is based on architectural deconstructions. Like in memories or dreams, every part is reconstructed, leaving an impression of unplanned reality. In some of the work there may be traces of human presence, but they are all empty, or temporarily abandoned. Anything could happen, but nothing does, besides the soundless shifting of elements in a bare, changing and undefined volume. In this way architecture transforms into anarchy of space. You can wander -not hide- in these idle constructions which, in the end, only consist of a rhythm between light and darkness.
11:25 AM, inkjet : transparency film, 29 x 21 x 15 cm, 2011 The transparent photo-objects can be seen as deconstructions. In spite of traces of human presense, what these models have in common is that they are either empty or temporarily abandoned. Like in memories or dreams, the buildings are reconstructed, some details have been emphasised others are dissolving or dissolved. The concepts of interior and exterior become interchangeable. One can look in and around the objects, and then they will transform, depending on the incidence of light or point of view, which results in the appearance, or disappearance of exits, entrances or rooms. Unavoidably you have to approach the buildings closely, but you cannot hide in these idle constructions, which after all in the end, only consist of light and darkness.
Ghost Buildings
"It’s short of a shared tone of memory that’s left like breath on a mirror."
Lyon, France
Newcastle Upon Tyne, England
"Is it the fear of forgetting that triggers the desire to remember, or is it perhaps the other way around?" (Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory, 2003)
Chiharu Shiota
"Everything I create is from a personal experience but I want to extend it into something universal." Stepping into one of Chiharu Shiota’s striking installations is like entering an alternate reality: the materials and objects feel familiar, but the logic behind the intricate web structures seem to stem from an unknowable realm. Enveloped in an elaborate web of yarn, you’re left with a subtle, indescribable imprint on the body and mind.
The Key in the Hand, 2015. Installation: old keys, wooden boats, red wool. Japan Pavilion at 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy For the 56th Venice Biennale, Shiota unveiled ‘The Key in the Hand' (2015), a piece created for the Japanese pavilion. In this installation, 180,000 keys gathered through an open call were suspended from dense webs of red yarn, which linked the gallery space to two wooden boats on the floor. A photograph of a child holding a key was displayed alongside four monitors featuring videos of young children talking about memories before and after they were born. For the artist, keys are a personal object that simultaneously keeps our space safe on a daily basis and has the potential to unlock doors to new, unknown worlds. The keys dangling from thousands of red strings evoked a sense of intercon-nectedness and expansiveness, allowing viewers to imbue their own memories and associations to the familiar everyday item.
Counting Memories, 2019. Installation: wooden desks, chairs, paper, black wool. Muzeum Śląskie w Katowicach, Katowice, Poland For ‘Counting Memories’ (2019), an installation shown at Muzeum Śląskie in Katowice, Poland, the artist envisioned a network of black yarn extending from the ceiling to be a night sky, or a universe, filled with white numbers dotting the space like stars. The piece invited viewers to sit at desks (also entangled in black yarn) where they had the opportunity to answer questions and contemplate the significance of numbers in their lives: Numbers that have special meaning, numbers in the form of dates, numbers connected to personal histories. As with many of her works, the installation attempted to make visible the invisible threads shaping our inner and outer lives.
Chiharu Shiota – A Room of Memorya, 2009, old wooden windows, group exhibition Hundred Stories about Love, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan
Clarissa Sligh
Reframing the Past (1984-1994) could also be titled Re-Reading the Family Album. From 1984 to 1994, Sligh’s work centred on a re-investigation and re-evaluation of her family’s photo album. Growing up in the blue collar, black neighbourhood of Halls Hill in Arlington, Virginia in the 1950’s, keeping up the family album was something the artist took great pride in. Not realizing that her early family album project was created through the lens of a stereotypical white American family, she saw the project as making a record of positive images of her black family.
She Sucked Her Thumb, 1989, cyanotype, 27.5 × 21.5 cm (10 13/16 × 8 7/16 in.)
Research on memory continues to unfold, but what we do know is that memory is fallible, and shockingly so. Most of our most cherished memories are confabulations, an intricate blend of fragments from our past, images from dreams, movies, books, and even other people’s memories assimilated as our own. This is the fantastic, frustrating, perplexing nature of memory: It is endlessly redefining and refining what we remember. Ask three siblings about a shared experience and you are likely to get three different versions of the event.
Our flawed memory unnerves us. We count on memory to validate reality. As our brains develop, we begin to create an autobiographical first-person narrative that defines who we are. Our identity formation depends on memories strung together into a recognizable story (autobiographical memory). In childhood, remembering positive choices and outcomes enhances a positive sense of self.
B. Ingrid Olson
This installation intermixes two series, Dura Pictures and Indexes. Each work in the Dura Pictures series presents one photographic image physically embedded within another, what the artist describes as placing a “moment in time within a different moment in time, just like memory does of the past in the present.”
Coming in with your back turned, 2021–2022, Inkjet print and UV-printed mat board in powder-coated aluminium frame, 29 × 19 1/4 × 1 1/4 in. (73.7 × 48.9 × 3.2 cm)
Completed Movement (Between Abut And Rub Between Two Notes The Number Between One And Two Divided Into Qualities And Kinds), 2016-2022 inkjet print and UV printed mat board in powder- coated aluminium frame, 96.5 x 45.72 x 3.2 cm 38 x 18 x 1.25 in
𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘥𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 (𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭), 2013-2020 Inkjet print and UV printed matboard in aluminum frame 14.5 x 12.5 in or 12.5 x 14.5 in (36.8 x 31.75 cm or 31.75 x 36.8 cm)
Katie Prock
While Katie explores photography in a variety of mediums, her work captures the essence of intimacy and memory. She often uses found imagery that she manipulates through cutting, sewing, and creating objects. Her series Yesterday We Were Girls explores the way images can represent the ways we change, and stay the same, over time.
EK: What relationship does memory or intimacy play within your practice, and does photography become a way to navigate these complex topics? KP: The photographs in this series are all filtered through memory. Either they are from the past and hold actual memory or they are my own interpretation of those past events. I have a strong memory and in some ways that’s really useful. However, I think that having a strong memory means it’s easy for me to get stuck in the past, especially the painful parts. With this work I tried to remember but not get stuck. I rewrote and reinterpreted painful memories from a new and healthier perspective. Through image making and writing, I’ve honored my history, both pleasant and painful, and imagined a future that isn’t dictated by my past.
traditions, expectations and other circular things
Christian Boltanski
In his installations and mixed-media works, Christian Boltanski uses photographs and found objects to question memory and individuality. An awareness of mortality, and of the general tenuousness of human existence, haunts his work. According to the artist, while individual memories might prove to be fragile, they are still filled with truthful yet unique values, making it the reason why he has often been choosing daily items as main creative elements to construct an archive of humanity
Christian Boltanski, Chance-The Wheel of Fortune, Installation View “Storage Memory”, Power Station of Art- Shanghai, 2018, Courtesy Power Station of Art
Christian Boltanski, Humains, Installation View “Storage Memory”, Power Station of Art- Shanghai, 2018, Courtesy Power Station of Art
Christian Boltanski, Personnes, Installation View “Storage Memory”, Power Station of Art- Shanghai, 2018, Courtesy Power Station of Art
In French, the word “Personnes” has dual meanings, referring to either “persons” or “nobody”. Here, the artist uses this double-edged word, which denotes presence but literally contains absence, to emphasise the inescapability of death and how chance watches over the destiny of each.
━━━━━━༻🤍*̥˚༺━━━━━━
ᴀꜱ ꜱᴏᴏɴ ᴀꜱ ʜᴇ ʜᴀᴅ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴇ’ᴅ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ʜᴜʀᴛ ʜᴇʀ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ, ʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴢᴇᴅ ʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴀɴᴛ ɪᴛ.
“ɪ ʜᴀᴅ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀʙʟᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴇᴘᴇɴᴅ ᴏɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴘʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛ ᴍᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴍᴇ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ꜱᴏ ꜱᴀꜰᴇ.”
ʜᴇ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ʟᴜᴄʏ ɢʀᴀʏ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴀʙʟᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ᴛʜᴏꜱᴇ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ.
“ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴜʀɴᴇᴅ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʀɪᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴋɪʟʟ ᴍᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴜʀᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴛʜᴀɴ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ʜᴀꜱ.”
ʜɪꜱ ᴇʏᴇꜱ ꜰᴇʟʟ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴀʀʀɪɴɢ.
ʜᴏᴡ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ʜᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴅᴏɴᴇ ɪᴛ? ʜᴏᴡ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ʜᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀᴄᴛᴜᴀʟʟʏ ᴛʀɪᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴋɪʟʟ ʜɪꜱ ʟᴜᴄʏ ɢʀᴀʏ? ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʜᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀʙʟᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱɪɢʜᴛ ᴏꜰ ʜᴇʀ ʟɪꜰᴇʟᴇꜱꜱ ʙᴏᴅʏ, ɪꜰ ʜᴇ’ᴅ ꜱᴜᴄᴄᴇᴇᴅᴇᴅ? ʜᴏᴡ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʜᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʟɪᴠᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴀᴛ? - The Rhythm of Order and Chaos, chpt. 12
𓈒🌲 ๋࣭ ࣪𓂃
In the memory of the blooming of the Soviet rock.
(В память о расцвете советского рока.)