WHAT [(IS IT) ABOUT MY] MEMORY
Mini-installation at Arc Gallery, San Francisco as part of the
“A Series of Fragments of Memories” exhibition
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. Collectively, they will form a back drop to readings, performances, & workshops looking at memory from creative, therapeutic and scientific perspectives.
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. Collectively, they will form a back drop to readings, performances, & workshops looking at memory from creative, therapeutic and scientific perspectives.