mother’s memory project

Catching falling sands of time, my works hopes to capture and examine the passage of lost moments of connection. Whether relationships are eroded by the constant pull of an omnipresent digitally interconnected life or overwhelmed by an engagement in life’s necessary, superficial tasks, I want to magnify how connections to people can be enriched. Through the slowness of sharing personal, the Mother’s Memory Project translates memories of nurturing into a tangible object drawn out of the unseen spaces of our past, revealing our overlapping histories. With needle and glass seed bead serving as grains of sand, I weave, measure and examine the ephemeral quality of memory and our shared experiences.

Using a framework of story sharing, the Mother’s Memory Project captures memories of nurturing on 3×5 library cards, while also asking participants to share colors connected to the memory. These color translate memories into individual beaded recordings as film reel frames. The recordings of shared histories are then woven together to make physical the ephemera of our shared histories. Through the process of sharing, stitching, and connecting the beaded film reel frames through a light is shedding on the unseen work provided by those who raise us and reveal overlapping memories of nurturing.

Participants are asked to share a memory of a maternal relative or figure in their life. This is someone who provided nurturing and guidance in life. Then they are asked to select a color sequence they feel is tied to that memory. Participants will be updated on the progress of this collaborative project by leaving their name and e-mail. Addresses will be used to build a map to illustrate the origins of shared memories.

mother’s memory project – story collector