Living many little lives

My boyfriend and I moved into our new apartment in April of last year, and because that time happened to be in the middle of the spring semester, there were a lot of boxes that just never got unpacked. Also, my parents recently went on a cleaning spree, and asked that I clean out all of my old stuff from their basement - I had boxes full of stuff from high school (over 10 years ago) and from my undergrad time in Boston (5 years ago). On a recent visit to Maryland, my parents unloaded a few of these boxes, which sat with the other unpacked boxes for a while. Until the other night. I needed a break from homework and so I decided I would bring a box or two up from the basement to unpack. I figure if I unpack one or two boxes every few days, I can get through the pile in a few weeks...although I am realizing now that it won’t go that quickly if I work at the pace I did the other night...

Inside the boxes I found old photos, sketchbooks, journals, letters, planners, and other traces of what I like to think of as some of the “little lives” I have lived through the years. It was almost like an archeological dig as I found evidence of my lives from the past - many things that I didn’t remember...or had forgotten about until I had them in my hand again. I was overwhelmed with all sorts of emotions, but all of it was veiled with a kind of sad, nostalgic feeling. Why is it that many people (at least I know I do) experience melancholy emotions when we are reminded of times gone by?

Do you ever feel like you have lived many “little lives”? I have lived in so many places, and with so many different people...I have been to different schools, been in different programs, worked in the “real world” in different capacities, had different roles and responsibilities...I watched my family change, watched my younger siblings grow up. And through all of this, although I have remained essentially the same person, my identity has changed as well. I am amazed by the fluidity of identity, and am reminded of the phrase “the only constant is change”. It is amazing to go through boxes where I could see how and when I changed and why. I relived happy and sad times, and by the end my “walk down memory lane” (that is, reading old letters/journals and looking at old pictures) I was exhausted.

Fabricated memories

Memory is so fluid and can be so inconsistent...it is a blurry version of the truth, and often times is not truth at all. I have found that I have fabricated childhood memories of times growing up with good friends, when in fact, I didn't meet them until later in my life...I forget who said what in arguments, I have things I believe to be true about myself (or others) that were lies I told when I was young. It is so interesting to me that we base so much of what we know to be TRUE on memory - something that is not truth (and something that changes and that often time we lose). Our identity is reliant on memory as well - how we remember growing up, how we make decisions and live our lives based on what we remember about decisions and results/consequences in the past. Even perceptions of intelligence are based on how much a person can remember...

from Louise Bourgeois' "Ode à l’Oubli" (Ode to Forgetfulness), 2004

Louise Bourgeious created (or "fabricated"...haha) a fabric book full of prints and sewn images and text and called it "Ode à l’Oubli" (Ode to Forgetfulness). The image above is of one of the pages of the book, and I think it is really beautiful and truthful in its honesty. This is usually something that people (at least adults) don't want to admit - that they are losing or fabricating false memory. The book is filled with images of patterns and shapes - it almost reminds me of flash cards or one of those memory games you find online - something to teach you or remind you about something you lost or forgot.

If you want to see a slide show of all of the pages of the book, click here: http://peterblumgallery.com/editions/louise-bourgeois/ode-l-oubli

Sand painting performance artist Kseniya Simonova

This video is of a contestant on Ukraine's version of "You've Got Talent" (I believe she was actually the winner) who uses sand and a light table to create her performance art. With these materials, she (Kseniya Simonova) creates a constantly changing "sand animation". In this particular piece, she recounts Germany conquering Ukraine in WWII. When I watched this video, I noted the reactions of the judges and audience - many people were cheering and crying and emotional in reaction to this work that referenced events from over 60 years ago.

I guess I posted this piece to illustrate that kind of collective memory that groups of people possess. These kinds of groups can be connected in many ways - perhaps by familial bonds, religion, ethnicity, country, or by shared experience - in any instance, there is a shared or collective memory among members of a group. I find the strength and power of that kind of shared memory really fascinating. In the end of the performance she writes "you are always near" and "1945" and the crowd goes wild...

(I will warn you, in the normal TV-talent-show format, it does get a little cheesy with the judges crying, but I think the way this artist works is really amazing - I've never seen anything like it. Enjoy!)

The MEMORY exhibit at the Exploratorium

The Exploratorium (the museum of science, art, and human perception in San Francisco) had an exhibit on Memory in 1998, and still have the website from the exhibit up here. The website has a lot of different content - from an exploration of the anatomy of memory (comparing human brains to similarly structured and functioning sheep brains - see photo above) to games that deal with memory in relation to perception.