exhibitions archive: memories

Memories

An interest in the process of visual "thinking" is what began this work.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we could see how our memories were formed? Using clinical observation to follow the trail of electrical and chemical impulses from cell to cell and region to region would perhaps teach more about brain function than why we were creating that memory. Maybe we would be surprised to find the path leading to other parts of our physical system.

What does a memory feel like? How does it feel when it's being made? Being recalled? What clues aid recall? A rather mysterious process taken for granted yet so important. Many memories are mundane, like math facts. Others are more powerful and unique, more personal. These can involve our senses in storage and retrieval. For some people, memories are visual, others tune in to sounds, smells or touch, etc. At times the memory is of something inside us, a feeling perhaps; maybe we don't even know what it is. Follow that trail and we might find ourselves beyond the brain and in the heart!

These more personal heartfelt memories, like dreams, can leave us with an unrecallable "image" until a stimulus triggers retrieval, sometimes taking us by surprise. For me these dreamlike memories are similar to little snippets from a film seemingly stopped at random, giving a chance to better see what was there when running at full speed. Stopped it seems blurred or hazy with an otherworldly feeling separating the past from the present and dream from reality.

Memories is an ongoing exploration of this effect, an effort to convey the feel of memories from simple moments. I've chosen materials and tools that portray the separation of memory from the present in a way similar to the snippet described above. Through these photographs I seek clues to why a personal memory is created and how it becomes embedded, preserved and released. These images represent memories created in the process of tracking their formation.