Recollection
Through my work, I explore connections between memory’s impact on identity and the blurring of truth and perception. My own lack of episodic memory served as the catalyst for my interest, but studies show that memory is unreliable for everyone. Each time we recall a memory, that memory is changed. This means that no matter how intensely we believe our recollection is accurate, it is never entirely true. Our only access to the past is through our perception of it and our interpretations of malleable archives: fragile recall, photographs taken out of context, stories told through the eyes of others. If we cannot check our memory against a True account of the past, how do we determine truth? Perhaps truth ceases to be relevant in favor of the most persuasive perception.
Much of my work is photo-based as typically photographs are treated as Ultimate Truth, but I often find myself looking at photographs from my past and those of a stranger’s past with the same feelings of nostalgia and familiarity. I frequently use images from four sources within my work: photographs from my childhood, old photographs I have acquired from strangers that feel as though they could be documenting my childhood, new photographs I take to mimic the qualities of the others, and AI-generated photographs created in response to my limited memories. Within my artistic practice, I spend much of my time pushing the boundaries between authorship and ownership of my memories and then presenting the images as Schrödinger's memories: each memory is both mine and not mine, genuine and false.
While I often begin with photographs, my primary artistic interventions occur through printmaking processes to further explore the alteration of reality through memory and multiplicity. My goal for this work is to treat the intangible memory as truth and the “documented reality” as the imperfect recollection, then alter that depiction of reality to align with my perception. I do this, in part, by removing or veiling portions of the images to make aspects of the memories inaccessible; lost to time. For other works, I do this by adding or editing elements of the photographs through both digital and physical interventions. By presenting obvious edits on reality, it is likely the more nuanced alterations will be mistakenly accepted as original truth while the printed and collaged elements are treated as false recall. My intention in creating works that blur the lines of my former reality is to curate my present through the manipulation of my perception. We are who we remember being, so who can I become if I change my memory?
Much of my work is photo-based as typically photographs are treated as Ultimate Truth, but I often find myself looking at photographs from my past and those of a stranger’s past with the same feelings of nostalgia and familiarity. I frequently use images from four sources within my work: photographs from my childhood, old photographs I have acquired from strangers that feel as though they could be documenting my childhood, new photographs I take to mimic the qualities of the others, and AI-generated photographs created in response to my limited memories. Within my artistic practice, I spend much of my time pushing the boundaries between authorship and ownership of my memories and then presenting the images as Schrödinger's memories: each memory is both mine and not mine, genuine and false.
While I often begin with photographs, my primary artistic interventions occur through printmaking processes to further explore the alteration of reality through memory and multiplicity. My goal for this work is to treat the intangible memory as truth and the “documented reality” as the imperfect recollection, then alter that depiction of reality to align with my perception. I do this, in part, by removing or veiling portions of the images to make aspects of the memories inaccessible; lost to time. For other works, I do this by adding or editing elements of the photographs through both digital and physical interventions. By presenting obvious edits on reality, it is likely the more nuanced alterations will be mistakenly accepted as original truth while the printed and collaged elements are treated as false recall. My intention in creating works that blur the lines of my former reality is to curate my present through the manipulation of my perception. We are who we remember being, so who can I become if I change my memory?