“...our understanding of who we are and who we will become depends on memories that may fade, change, or even strengthen as time inexorably passes. And it is from this ongoing dynamic between time and memory that our autobiographies—the stories we tell about our lives—are born. We cannot hope to understand memory’s fragile power without examining what happens to memory as time passes and considering how we translate the residues of experience that persist across time into tales of who we are” (Schacter,1996:136).
The core of my practice is informed by memory, specifically the relationship between memory and time. It is a reflection of what is absent and present, and what traces memory leaves behind. Following the passing of my grandmother in 2021, I have been trying to hold onto the memory of her whilst grappling with feelings of loss and absence. This longing to remember developed into an attempt at trying to recall memories from my gran’s house that she lived in from 1974-2010. Through my work, this has been done by constructing, recording, and tracing my memory of her house in a state of it slowly shifting, distorting, and deteriorating from my memory. I wanted to articulate the feelings of trying to grasp at a memory just out of reach. It is an attempted repair of my memory and experience, as well as an attempt at solidifying memory as a form of holding onto it. It. is an exploration of memory, not only in its presence, but also in its absence, and what is left behind.
Some of the furniture originally in my grandmother’s house was either auctioned or donated. These objects feel completely lost in my memory. The furniture that remains made its way into my mother’s house. They are present, and yet feel detached from their original home. "Parting 1" is my gran's side table that now occupies a liminal space, transitioning into a state of becoming distorted and fragmented. It takes the form of a skeletal metal frame of what it once was, in a process of deterioration before disappearing completely. Sitting on the table is a broken teacup with gooseberries cascading from it. The gooseberries act as a metaphor for memories that are obstructed or cluttered, like a gooseberry encased by its husk, preventing one from viewing it clearly. They are made from teabags to reference my memory of having tea with my gran.
