Memory Works

Communications scholar Marita Sturken defines “technologies of memory” as tools that can activate memory flows and encourage the creation of counter narratives as well as commemoration. Writing about cultural memory, Sturken explains how memory is constantly negotiated and reframed by objects, images, and diverse representations of historical accounts and contemporary events. As Sturken argues, “These are technologies of memory, not vessels of memory in which memory passively resides so much as objects through which memories are shared, produced, and given meaning.” Technologies of memory might include public artworks, film, posters, memorials, photography, ribbons, “and even bodies themselves” as these objects and sites not only evoke memories but can create new ones as well.

Exploring the concept of technologies of memory, this exhibition examines artworks that question the myriad ways memory works and the tools that incite remembrance, reflection, and dialogue. The artists in the exhibition adopt and share their own tools to enhance memory, interrogate it, and contest the ways we remember and experience our memories. Their work employs mixed media such as collage, dried leaves, string, coffee, paper, and photography.

José Manuel Fors explains, “Mi primera exposición personal se tituló Acumulaciones; desde entonces tengo una marcada tendencia a acumular cosas…La acumulación de documentos y objetos no siempre puede tener un vínculo directo con mi memoria familiar, pero si es un trabajo íntimo que se va expandiendo” (My first solo show was titled Accumulations and since then I have a tendency to save things…The safekeeping of documents and objects is not always related to a family memory, but it is an intimate work that keeps expanding).

Reflecting on the role of memory, another artist in the exhibition, Georgina Reskala comments, “A moment is alive each time we speak of it and remember it. And each time we speak of it we transform it. Every time I replicate an image, I mimic storytelling and memory making as I take a moment out of time, copy it, reshape it, transform it, or erase it. I am interested in the power of narrative and how it shapes our personal history as well as our collective memory.”

Other artists in the exhibition who examine notions of memory, identity, fragmentation, and amalgamation include Matthew Picton and Elsa Mora.

This exhibition is curated by Adriana Miramontes Olivas, PhD Curator of Academic Programs and Latin American and Caribbean Art.