After suffering from a concussion as a child, I’ve become intrigued by the way human memory functions. Specifically, surrounding the idea of archiving. People use various methods of documentation to preserve memories, from writing to photography, to ceramics and tapestries. However, as the human mind deteriorates with time, so too can these become faded, damaged, destroyed, and corrupted. My work revolves around this concept, exploring the ways in which photographs, memory, and ceramic archives can warp and fragment over time. My work tells an incomplete story that forces the audience to fill in the blanks in order to create something cohesive, reminiscent of the ways in which we revisit and unconsciously alter memories overtime.

This triad of work (51.01354, -114.09988. A Place I Thought I’d Forget. A Place I Forgot) is made from a set of images that I took in a flurry at the end of grade three, when my family was planning to move away from Calgary. Those plans fell through but this frantic attempt to document what I believed I would forget remain. The view out my window, the sky above my school, and a good number of my best friends. I forgot entirely about the existence of this series of images until their rediscovery, but what I do remember is the emotional reasoning behind this documentation. In making my ceramic work I mix my memory fragments with the pictorial documentation of the time. This act I find reminiscent of modern-day blogging. A desperate attempt to connect emotional memories onto the more subjective image, an attempt to create something close to your physical self that will outlive the memory and physical photos.

My work is created using Egyptian faience. The process of mixing my own material from scratch allows me to intentionally choose to document a permanent flaw in the material. As time passes, a coating of salt will form on the work’s surface, clouding and obscuring the image. Efflorescence is a physical glitch, frosting the work just like a faded memory. And similar to my memories, these replicas will not last in a perfect state for long. It serves as an example as to how, no matter how desperately we try to preserve them, our experiences are not immortal. Photos can be damaged. Data can be corrupted. Over time, my ceramics will erase themselves and become contextually meaningless.