Minutes, Days, Years, is a body of photographic work presented in an installation format. In this work, the artist seeks to rebuild her mother’s memories which were lost to electro-convulsion therapy that she received in January 2012. The images are 42 cyanotypes on glass, made from personal archive photos from the years 2008-2011; the time period which her memory is most damaged, and the time that the artist began learning photography. These images are placed atop a 5-foot by 14-foot paper backing, made of two images from the same time period. This image creates a soft background, made of up the only two archive images not pictured in blue. They become the background to the work—yet they provide no specific detail to the small images, and in some cases, they obscure the work farther. Minutes, Days, Years references: photography as manipulatable memory, the historical and contemporary usage of the cyanotype, color theory and the impermanence of memory and image.
Across from the installation is a selection of images that were used as source materials, the viewer can see the full color and content of the images that can’t be seen when they’re recreated on the blue glass plates. Some of the images that are most difficult to see on the opposite wall are revealed to the viewer, so they can gain a better understanding of what is missing from or distorted in the blue images.
This work is a tribute to my mother, sharing my memories of my life that she has lost, and a reflection on where we come from and where we’re going.
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