Time: Embodied – Project 3: Open works
Preliminary:
Production notes and action plan:
Artist Statement:
Photographs can serve as a way of storing or preserving memories and, when viewed, can activate memory recall. It is this last concept in particular that lead me to develop a digital scrapbook for my final project. In general, scrapbooking is a method of preserving, presenting, and arranging personal and family history. Many times our memories have either physically or metaphysically been taken and stowed away as we go about our everyday lives. I find that it is often years later that they are found, but by then the names, faces, and places we once knew have been forgotten. In this sense, keeping a scrapbook can essentially organize our thoughts and create a journal of memories. Even day to day life, when recorded, becomes history. Therefore, a scrapbook is a way of documenting time in either a linear or non-linear way, depending on its overall function and purpose.
In my scrapbook, all the memorabilia revolves around my grandmother, Lola Betty. Each page includes an assortment of photographs, printed media, and objects that were either indicative of her past life in general or specifically related to a significant time and place. When I first stumbled upon aged prints of my grandmother in her late twenties and early thirties, I felt as if I was learning about an entirely new person. It is this excitement and admiration of learning more about someone very dear to me, that I hoped to convey in the construction of my scrapbook.
During the preliminary stages of this project, I debated on whether the order of the photographs should be organized chronologically or abstractly. Initially, I thought that having it be in chronological order would establish a clear timeline of the momentous occasions in my grandmother’s life. However, as a personal challenge to myself, I eventually left the decision up to intuition. My initial reaction towards a particular photograph determined where it would be placed in the sequence of pages. This process of relying on visceral reasoning was, in a large way, therapeutic. Having not been able to attend my grandmother’s funeral, there had been a part of me, and our relationship, that felt unresolved. I did not feel like I was truly able to comprehend, accept and grieve her death. There was always this question of how, once the body is gone, do we remember our loved ones? It took a lot of personal reflection, with additional help from family and friends, to discover that sharing stories about your loved one, either written, spoken or illustrated, keeps their memory alive.
Although the times they commemorate can not be retrieved and the people in them may no longer be with me now, each worn photograph, each scribed poetry excerpt, each flattened object, brought me closer and closer to my grandmother – my Lola. For that, I am forever grateful.
Final piece: Option 2 – 18-24 page e-book project using InDesign: