Memory Box, Memory Fort

Memory Box

March 2011

detail (lights out)

detail (lights out)

detail (lights on)

detail (lights on)

This piece is one of a series in which I'm trying to create different metaphors for the workings of memory. In this project, I wanted to make a box that would have ridges through which canvases could easily pass and be rearranged. The fabric on the canvases, which for me is reminiscent of bed sheets, has been ripped and altered with other imagery and my own hair. The box is representative of the locus where memories are kept, while the canvas are memories. The point of interest for me is that, though our minds can change, alter, erase or invent memories, that they are all contained in one space.

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Memory Fort

December 2010

This image holds nine separate images of the documentation I took while trying, and failing, to build my own fort. It was inspired by a memory I had of being in Turkey during an earthquake in 1997. As an eight year old kid, I found it very exciting that everyone wanted to camp outside for a month, and my friend and I would walk around, trying to peek in peoples' tents to see their way of doing it. I thought the whole thing was a big game that even adults wanted to play. Thinking about myself then while also living in the present moment, made me wonder if my younger self and I were two separate people, and that I was trying to be her again. I decided to build my own fort out of bricks, string and twig. I probably should have used fabric or more practical items, but I didn't. In the end, I made a terrible fort; in fact, it was really only a shrine or memorial to a fort. I arranged my documentation so that many moments may seem to be one entity, just as many memories and days allow us still to be individuals and even more so because we remember our former selves and consistently recharge old intuitions and interests.