Virgin Mary

Post-Memory Series

This body of work is concerned with how subjectivity is shaped by memory and how the act of remembering is manipulated by the mnemonic medium of photography. Identity formation is hinged on one’s narrative of the past just as memory is inseparable from our perception of the present. A fugitive testimony to a moment lost, a photograph has the visceral and haunting ability to resurrect the past into the present.  Although no object is counted on more for its mnemonic technology, a photograph is not inhabited by memory, but rather produces it.  The image painted by light counterfeits an instance and constructs a narrative of the past. The mutability of memories unveils the role the imagination plays in remembering. Thus, the capacity to reframe the past is precarious insofar as one’s identity becomes a construct of the memories you have chosen to keep and those you have chosen to forget.

Enveloped with nostalgia, this imagery is done in mimesis of memories, deteriorating the positivist discourse of photography’s relationship with truth.  Captivated by the rituals of remembrance, these (post)memories aim to undermine and visually articulate the mnemonic mechanism of the mind and medium.  The emotive technology of photography is triggered by the realization “that-has been”, even when one’s recollection reconstructs the experience.

Resurrecting the forgotten from temporal decay, photographs are modern relics of nostalgia.   Memories of the past are dictated by the present.  Understanding art as an expression of lived experiences, the subjective gaze renders this imagery a self portrait.  Yet, the self I am portraying is a constructed one - each manufactured image serves as a piece of a fictive narrative. The ambiguity of the imagery renders it accessible to the collective conscience and vast spectrum of semiotic interpretations exploring how photographs produce the mythology of a fictional past.

Sam Heydt 2014

Glossary

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