POETIC MEMORY | coming nearer

"The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful ..."

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being; p. 208

From our most tender age events instill emotion in us. The place where we spent our summers, the beloved object received as a present, the Sunday ice-cream cone offered by a parent. These events may be forgotten, but the perceived emotions lie anchored deep inside us.

Poetic Memory | coming nearer is a tentative at reconstructing these emotions through the photographic document and our perception of it.

A substitute for what is real.

Fragments of information are extracted and then transformed by capturing the image on a reflective surface and framing it in such a manner as to leave out its context.

My objective is not to reproduce this reality but to fabricate another based on my personal experience. I remove the exactitudes by focusing on a chosen detail that evokes a limbic memory; one that leaves me with an impression of déjà vu.

These images become a reflection on the subjectivity of our memories which are continually transfigured through time.

Marie-Josée ROY