The process of making my memory box, had to do with the representation of my adolescence, from age 11-15. Visuals, interests, and objects with certain textures, smells, and uses, represents my memories at that time. I chose to be inspired by the part of my house that I stayed in the most, which would be my room, and use objects that were in other parts of my house and other places that trigger lots of memories.
The string that I added on the left side of the box, is based on a lot of string that would get scattered around our floors from the carpet in our living room. My cats would scratch and pull at this carpet, resulting in all the loose string. The hair ties are my cats favorite things to play with. They would swat them all over the floor, and I remember always finding them in hidden places, like a scavenger hunt. The broken colored pencils represent the drawers in my room. They were filled with art supplies and often pieces of broken pencils. The candies that I attached on the right used to be one of my favorite sweets that I’d carry in my backpack to school.
The visuals and collage in my box is not limited to my room only, they also represent parts of other places and objects, such as my old mood boards I used to make on our macintosh computer, my sketchbooks and comic strips stuffed in my school locker and in my bedroom shelf. Movies that I would secretly borrow from my moms office, and cartoons I would watch in the video room. I made a small clay bust that represents myself when I was between the age frame. My inspiration to make it was to create a surreal claymation feel to the piece. I used to watch a lot of claymation cartoons and movies years ago, so in a way it brings me back in time.
My goal for this project was to give me a sense of nostalgia, the right way. I wanted to make the box work with the color patterns and collage visuals instead of making it too random and messy looking. So I kept the theme dark and fitting. I used to be very heavily influenced by horror and cartoons, which I made sure to articulate in the box. Making this piece really made me look back on all the little things that were so familiar to me in that period of my life. I was careful to choose objects that brought back nostalgia, no matter how insignificant they may seem. It goes to show how powerful a memory can be.
