Reflective Writing - Fabricated Memories (2022)

By Renee Yeo Zhi Hui

”Fabricated Memories” is a soft sculpture installation that works with preloved grandma’s textiles and collages of edited photographs printed on preloved textile. Exploring the themes of materiality, memories, and childhood. In this work “Fabricated Memories”, I would like to approach object making by exploring materiality and through my themes on intangible memories. How can I convey intangible memories into tangible ones? Memories are often intangible, incapable of being perceived by touch unless it was recorded in photographs or videography which captures moments. We remember our experiences sometimes vividly in mind or fade with time, yet how exactly we remember is dependent on how we prioritise those memories. Materiality has played a huge part in conveying intangibles such as thoughts, and feelings, hence I will be conveying the importance of chosen material in my work exploring personal narrative.

Why do we remember? One of the main theories that explain how we remember according to psychology is “Levels of Processing Theory” (Challis, Velichkovsky and Craik, 1995). This theory explains the reason why we remember certain details clearer than others. When storing memories, the brain prioritises those experiences that are most rewarding (Challis, Velichkovsky and Craik, 1995). The information will be processed deeply, it will remain in memory for a long time and help us to remember when needed. What gets remembered is not random. The brain has mechanisms to automatically preserve memories important for future behaviour (Challis, Velichkovsky and Craik, 1995). Hence, this is why we remember some childhood memories vividly more than others. Yet memories are often something that is not tangible, which only photographs or videos could record that moment down so we can look back and mesmerise. Materials could help us to bring out the intangibles like feelings, and inform our audience of the story behind the work. In the paper “Materiality as the Basis for the Aesthetic Experience in Contemporary Art”, the author states that throughout history artists have turned expression to ideas through art-making as a way of conveying unambiguously human desire and modifying day-to-day materials into works of art or what is mainly alterable and intangible; sentiments and emotions, both bodily and sentimental (Mills, 2009). An artwork’s material will speak for itself and tell its story, in which the audience could understand what the artist’s train of thought is, which is important in conveying emotions into your work that will make it more sentimental when it comes to turning memories into tangible. Materiality in art always creates a sense of “feeling” that is incorporated with the audience’s imagination and the unforeseeable abstract aesthetic experience (De Bolla, 2002). Imagination and the aesthetic experience always influence one another.

As I further researched how fabric communicates memories. I came across this book called “Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty” written by Carole Hunt. In one of the chapters which is under “Worn clothes and textiles as archives of memory”, which talks about the capacity of textiles to retain and communicate memory, both privately and publicly. The author mentioned that cloth can be regarded as a form of archival information and carrier of knowledge (Hunt, 2014). Carole Hunt mentioned that the standard study and discourse on the relationship between textiles and memory do not adequately represent our material experience of textiles. A way of capturing and describing memory as it relates to textiles that blends rigorous critical analysis with personal experiences portrayed in literary memoirs offers a manner that is closer to that which is truly experienced (Hunt, 2014).

Stallybrasshas the concept of cloth in its everyday use as naturally recording and preserving human imprints, to become a form of memory itself (Stallybrass, 1996). Stallybrass highlights an important component of the study considering fabric as a form of memory 'archive' in and of itself (Stallybrass, 1993). Stallybrass analyses garments in terms of their usage, how they are worn, and how they relate to the human body they encase before considering them as technological or creative objects (Stallybrass, 1999) . Clothing can also be a residue, a ruin, and a place of grief for him (ibid, p. 29). It accomplishes so not only by being present, but also by being worn again and allowing for recall.

Derrida's concept of archivisation offers a framework for considering how memory might be kept in textiles. Derrida's deconstruction and poststructuralist theory, have played a role in the growing intellectual and critical conversation on textiles (Irvin, 2010). Hunt proposes that Derrida's term of 'archivisation' forms part of this critique, not as a replacement for present discourse, but as a supplement to it, by building on the work of researchers in the field of fabric and memory (Hunt, 2014). What can be archived, according to Derrida, is determined by the structure of any archive. As a result, the technical procedures that constitute the foundation of the archive's building shape history and memory. Derrida's concept of 'archivisation' as a means of documenting memory through 'external' inscription (or mark-making) is beneficial for thinking about how memory might be on and within cloth, building on Stallybrass' work (Irwin, 2010). These readings aided me in the conceptual of my work on how fabric communicates memories on a personal and public level.

Looking through various artworks that involve the use of textiles, I came across Tamara Henderson who is an artist that was born in Canada and now based in London, England (Tate, n.d.). In her Seasons End series works, she collects objects and materials from various places, including discarded and recycled goods, and reconfigures them into artworks that range from furniture to large-scale installations, with hand-sewn and embroidered textiles frequently featured as well as the films she produced along with the series (Tate, n.d.). She often references expanded states of mind that translate into her works. Sewing and filmmaking are intertwined for the artist. I learnt that I could think and reference daily objects or things that we see and observe how it makes a connection with each other, like how Henderson sees film moving through the projector is like how the fabric moves through the sewing machine. The installation's multiple components illustrate Henderson's work's analogue, handmade, and performative elements, as well as the conversation she creates between media. Where the work speaks for the artist’s concept without even using words which made it successful in bringing out the work’s objective.

Tamara Henderson “Seasons End: Out of Body” at Oakville Galleries, Oakville

In my work, I work with mainly preloved textiles that my grandma owned before she passed as the main medium, photo collage printed on one of her textiles. As explained in the dictionary, textile is a flexible material made by weaving together a tangle of yarns or threads spun from raw fibers (natural or synthetic) into long, twisted lengths. Weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, tatting, felting, bonding, or braiding these threads together form textiles. Textiles are also considered as canvas, which create their own story with the hands of their craftsman and turn them into art by artists. When it comes to textiles, the type of material of the textile also informs one’s culture and personal history. Edited photographs which present the fabricated memories “evidence” that shows it exists in my mind and be printed on one of the textiles that my grandmother owned. Combining printed collage of fabricated images with preloved textiles. The image that does not exist in actual photography.

The craft of patchwork is sewing small pieces of fabric in different designs, colours, sewn together. This act of patched fabrics also acts as reconstructing memories. This will be my take on how “memories can be tangible” through the sense of touch and by visuals when it is presented in the form of textile, which is soft when touched or by the look of it, like how memories are fragile. I decided to hand sew 80 percent of the work, to experience what our grandmother or mother did for their family, putting in the effort and time to create the piece. It also allows me to appreciate the love that mothers have for us, which is selfless love. These fabrics sew together and form a piece of a handmade patchwork quilt and then turn into a cradle. In the soft sculpture installation, I included the handmade mung bean pillow that used to be placed on the baby’s chest to feel secure, to add a touch of love and the feeling of security to it. I reuse my cradle hanger from 23 years ago instead of getting a brand new one that has its meaning as to me it holds the memories (patchwork cradle net) up together. Cradle of fabricated memories, which are fragile in a way that memories are intangible, that we need to treat it with extra care just like a cradle to a baby that holds the baby but for this work is cradle the fabricated memories. To provide warmth for the baby and the cradle provides warmth for the memories.

During the making of the work, it made me question how could the work engage the audience 360 degrees when your installation can look from different perspectives? When it comes to observing my work from the outside, it will be an interesting experience for the audience. I resolve how the audience can engage from the outside perspective of my work as I changed my design of the initial outlook of it by having a large piece of printed photo collage fabric sewed onto the patchwork and be surrounded by the patchwork to allow the audience to take time and look at the photo collage.

As the patchwork cradle is placed further from the wall, it allows the audience to walk around the work instead of looking at it just from one angle, and it is placed at an average lady's height to allow eye-level vision tunnel to look at or into the cradle. The cradle tends to sway and turn, which is seldom stagnant due to the way I tie the rope that is suspended from the ceiling. Hence to a certain extent, I think that my work does allow audiences to have 360 degrees engagement so I considered the audience engagement considerations as successful. However, I will need the real live audience crowd to see whether it serves its purpose for the engagement. To determine whether it is fully successful or not, I will need to do a data collection on-site and observe the interactions between the audience and the work. After collecting the data on-site during the showcase, I would like to apply what I have observed and make changes and take the details into consideration for better audience engagement for future work.

(1770 words with citations)

References

Challis, B. H., Velichkovsky, B. M., & Craik, F. I. M. (1995). Levels-of-Processing Effects on a Variety of Memory Tasks: New Findings and Theoretical Implications, Consciousness and Cognition, 5(1-2), 142–164. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1006/ccog.1996.0009

De Bolla, P. (2002). Toward the Materiality of Aesthetic Experience. Diacritics, 32(1), 19–37. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566359

Hunt, C. (2014). Worn clothes and textiles as archives of memory. In Critical studies in fashion and beauty: Fashion and ethics (Number 2, Vol. 5, pp. 207–232). https://doi.org/10.1386/csfb.5.2.207_1

Irwin, J. (2010). Derrida and the Writing of the Body (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315576558

Mills, C. M. (2009). Materiality as the Basis for the Aesthetic Experience in Contemporary Art. ScholarWorks University of Montana. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2308&context=etd.

Stallybrass, P. (1993). 'Worn Worlds: Clothes, Mourning and the Life of Things', The Yale Review, 81:2, pp. 35 – 50.

Stallybrass, P. (1996). 'Worn Worlds: Clothes and Identity on the Renaissance Stage', in D. Grazia, M. Quilligan and P. Stallybrass (eds.), Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 289-231.

Stallybrass, P. (1999). 'Worn Worlds: Clothes Mourning and the Life of Things', in B. D. Amos and L. Weissberg (eds.) Cultural Memory and the Construction of Identity, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, pp. 27 – 45.

Tate. (n.d.). Tamara Henderson – display at Tate Modern. Tate. Retrieved April 25, 2022, from https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/display/tamara-henderson