In Memoriam

The artwork ‘In Memoriam’ transforms existing hierarchies of knowledge of postmemory and memory studies to articulate the temporal nature of memory through a crossing of thresholds between critical practice and anthropological research. ‘In Memoriam’ extends previous examination of personal archival material that represent family and hidden narratives within the family archive into new spaces. Hirsch states that ‘postmemory’ is received memory constructed by future generations. In this way memory becomes fragile in narratives that provide ideological and political alternatives and, as postmemory, articulates that which has been inhibited in a restructured social memory (Gibbons 2007, pg.73 ).

In Memoriam (2018) brings together a series of four portrait photographs of the same person at different times in their life from a photographic archive of the Wilson family from the Victorian era to the 1980s. In the installation they appear much larger in size recalling the postmemory installations of Christian Boltanski. In an innovative crossing of the threshold between post-memory studies and textile art as critical practice there is a sense of a ‘worn out tapestry’ of the temporal that references fading family archives as the worn, the lost and forgotten; the anonymous ghosts that once flourished and laughed and walked the town now decaying in memories. The installation diffuses the ‘hauntology’ of post-cultural memory. In Memoriam (2018) was selected as one of the artworks to tour eastern Europe from 9th September through 2019 in the 5th Textile Art of Today Triennial Without Borders.

Audiences have noted how the artwork captures the aura of memory in a unique combination of fibre and image to capture the qualities of memory. The works have been significant in stimulating discussion on personal recollections of family, family values and shared social memory.