As the wordcount is fairly low I am having to think carefully about the content of my writing. Moving on from the Place, Muscle memory and Dreamlike memories heading discussed in my second year essay I decided that objects of memory would narrow things down. Researching and writing about objects I am finding that the sub sections expand further; Objects which are felt, held, useful, commemorative, ephemeral, transient, digital, handmade, abject and archived. This is not exhaustive and reflects the uncovering which evolves through the methodical way in which I have been carrying out my studio practice as I experience and understand each object in new ways holding, feeling, weighing, measuring and so on. The digital essay which will be handed in feels like a summary of research which includes personal reflections and memories by way of illustrating my findings. There is a growing sense for me that the physical ‘book’ is the essay. It holds the information in a wholistic way which the essay doesn’t allow. I propose that the book is the essay;

It is tangible, textured, layered, it smells, sounds and moves.

It is rich with layered ways of experiencing the physical, both in the actuality of the book itself and the subject matter within (as are the paintings). It communicates my research, exploration and practice fully and is parallel to my paintings which bring resolve to the project. The physicality of the book and it’s textured pages of text and image provide the punctuation which is needed to move between research, theory, archiving and personal recollections.

It is an evocative object about evocative objects

And another thing…

It also feels really important to acknowledge my position. It would be naïve of me not to recognize that my memories are that of a white, western female, my memories are typical of many my age in my perhaps insular world having lived my life in the area in which I was born. A unique perspective only perhaps in that sense as my children are living through uncannily similar experiences. Objects of cultural tradition and ritual, religious objects, heirlooms, and complex gender specific context cannot be fully understood by me. I can only speak through my own narrative and understanding which I recognize is limited. The following information has been gathered throughout my research and highlights some of the complexities and contrasts.

I recently came across the word Kindertransport, it is a German word meaning children’s transport and is the term for the rescue effort organized prior to the second world war to move children out of Nazi Germany to the UK and other European countries for safety. The extract taken from Bracelet, hand towel, pocket watch: Objects of the Last Moment in Memory and Narration by Mona Korte and Toby Axelrod refers to the memoir of Lore Segal (Other Peoples Houses).

In her memoir, Other People’s Houses , published as early as 1958, Lore Segal recounted the last hours before her departure on a Kindertransport from Vienna. Her mother, turning her pain about the impending loss of her daughter into busy activity, tried to ferret out her daughter’s last wish, and forced food on her utterly sad child, a scene that Lore Segal later seems to have interpreted in ways that are perhaps represen- tative of comparable parting situations: “She was wanting me to need something that she could give me.”13 Actually not wanting anything, the embarrassed child thought of only a not very tempting sausage, which the mother then painstakingly procured and packed in the suitcase. This sausage, laden with meaning through the farewell and separation scene, preoccupied the girl for days – during the trip, upon her arrival and, as it were, up to the time that she wrote about it. She does not want to eat it, but rather to preserve it; when she arrives in Dovercourt she hides the by now moldy sausage under her bed; later, to avoid making herself conspicuous, she joins the other children in searching for the source of the terrible smell, trying literally to bury the sausage during an unobserved moment, only in the end to have to “dispose” of it publicly and profanely in a garbage pail.14 A supremely transient object, or rather the strong connection to something that – despite all rescue attempts – fails as an object of transition, forms the fragile backbone of her

Janet Hoskins ‘How things tell the Stories of People’s Lives’ is focused on six individuals from the Kodi of Sumba, Esatern Indonesia. A project which began as a narrative of others and quickly became focused on objects.

Oral heirlooms: the vocalisation of loss and objects by Aarthi Ajit : This article is an enquiry into how and for what purposes physical objects of importance are transmitted vocally between generations. The oral histories narrated to me by British nationals who originate from Kerala (India) revealed objects associated with and taken from ancestral houses in the homeland, tharavads, many of which no longer exist. 

References:

https://www.academia.edu/11273118/Biographical_Objects_How_Things_Tell_the_Stories_of_Peoples_Lives

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176709/pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24625379?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents