I came across 'The Memory Box' posting on a website called enlighteningthoughts.word.com when doing a search for articles on memory and photography. The posting in its entirety can be found at http://goo.gl/IL08HD and is well worth a visit.
The author looks at the reconstruction of memory through photographic image represented by the image of their deceased father. This struck a chord with me in the sense that my personal project is all about creating memory using the means of photography. Where I will be creating new images to 'conjure' up traces of my dead father, here the idea is to recompose an image from a series of existing ones. The second video sets out to 'decompose' the images, highlighting the impact of family photos on the memory.
The Memory Box sets out to transfigure 'the abstract theme of memory through a physical installation'. To quote the blog ' The memory is never entirely lost and family snapshots are a means of recalling buried past traces.'
While I am not sure that I agree that memory is never entirely lost as we know for individuals it does disintegrate with age and illness, I am using family snapshots to as a starting point for my project. The very fact that I could not find very many snapshots, any visual traces of my father to reinforce my memories of him has led me to create new photographic images ..to present a 'trace' of him that I can share..
The author believes that human memory narrates family snapshots, clarifying the idea that family snapshots always need a reader who remembers and narrates'. I am aiming to create memories of my father that do not need someone who remembers to turn narrator for others..
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