Transformation of Persistant Memory - a work in progress begun at the last “Share” event I attended (learn about “Share“).
Based on the prompt, Stolen, this series is inspired by the idea behind the “persistance of memory” (a concept made famous in the art world by Salvador Dali). Persistance of memory is like when you have a memory from your childhood that you are always able to play back on call - rewind and play back. But, new scientific research (listen to Radiolab’s episode, “Memory and Forgetting” or read In Search of Memoryby Eric R. Kandel) proves that each time you recall that memory it becomes altered because your brain actually has to recreate the memory. So, things from the memory change and can become totally different.
The idea of stolen memories reminded me of my grandmother who ended up having Alzheimers toward the end of her life. For the project, I used a family photo of my grandmother, mother and me - when I was a baby - and created a series of paintings as imagined from my grandmother’s perspective. The memory starts with all three of us focused on a flower, then my grandma becomes my mother and her image fades away, then the whole memory is reduced to just her and the flower. The writing in the background is how I imagine she would recall the memory.
