10.25.17 What [(Is It) About My] Memory Community Participation

Thank you to all who have shared their memories with me so far via the memory cards of my What [(Is It) About My] Memory project. They will be installed, with my Somas (http://www.sherricornett.com/somas-what-is-it-about-my-memory.html) as part of Karen's show "A Series of Fragments of Moments" at Arc Gallery San Francisco next month as prompts for visitors to recall their own memories and add, if they wish, to the collective memory in this project.

What a beautiful collection of story snippets about family, friends, nature, adventure, pets, humor, music. . . This project is ongoing, with many more Somas and Memory Cards in the works, so if any of you are interested in learning more and/or wish to participate, please let me know! Their are several ways to share your memories- including text, email and me sending you blank cards. And check out the Memory Card link.Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Participants include: Abington Friends School (the second, third and fourth grades), Ann Botel-Barnard, Scott Botel-Barnard, Norma Buchanan and Family, Karen Gutfreund Kari McIntyre Kaiser, Linda Bria Lemire, Jodi Lightner, Rachel BB Mainwaring, Priscilla Otani, Debra Riezebeek, ​Rocky Mountain College Writing Classes (taught by Jaci Webb), Robin Taylor and University of Pennsylvania Professional Development Class for Teachers.

What [(Is It) About My] Memory? What about my memory? What memory?

While my mother was being diagnosed with frontal-temporal dementia and she was losing her own stories, my innate curiosity about memories, how the brain stores them and loses them, escalated. The neurologists and memory specialists fed me with new terminology, theories, suggestions for activities that preserve brain function, images and . . . more questions. How do we influence each other’s memories? How does telling our stories alter our memories? What is shared, collective, societal memory? I decided to use my personal history as my laboratory, as the creative resource for work about memory. And, then, develop ways to weave in other people’s memories and ways to explore those memory preservation activities with others. The beginning manifestations of all of this are the soma or neural cell body wall sculptures that are symbolic of particular groupings of memories in my own life. Wire dendrites and axons radiate out and hold tags upon which are written individual memories – my own, ones I have gathered from family and friends and, with the exhibition, those added by visitors. This project will continue to grow, with larger installations and more somas and more memory cards, in future venues.

http://www.sherricornett.com/memory-cards-what-is-it-about-my-memory.html