Collective Memory is a project about the premature feeling of nostalgia we can sometimes get for the present as it slips into the past. It was first inspired by a letter I wrote to my future daughter about the coral reef, the ocean, and the San Francisco Bay, three things which are currently being destroyed, eroded or permanently changed by human activity and time. I hoped to preserve for her my memories of these things so that she might be able to experience them even without their presence in her future. Through this process, I became very interested in the idea of the physical storage of memory. My memories of the ocean were being physically stored in my letter, but previous to this act they had all been “stored” in ocean itself. When I visit the beach, I think about Poseidon and Amphrite, two greek gods I read about as a child, I think about the voyage of Columbus and his men to the Americas, I think about adventure, and mystery and exploration and science and education. What would happen to all these histories once the place we went to reminisce was gone? Would they disappear as well?
I began to research the sociological theory of Collective Memory, which states that all memory is associated with a group and also a space, and that separation from this space can cause memory to fade. This is why, once we return to our childhood home, we can remember so much more about that time in our lives. Surely, we have the same associations with the environment. Would important memories fade if we no longer had access to the natural world we are familiar with?
In my garment, I explore the connection between the decay of the physical – the bleaching of the coral reef, the effects of climate change on the ocean – and the dissipation of the memory, story and history we associated with these things. Each face is made up of prints associated with certain myths and anecdotes I researched. The nile delta, which appears on the dark print is a daughter of the greek Titan, Tethys, the mother and creator of all water in the world. As the prints fade, faces physically fade into abstract shapes. The final face, on the skirt becomes threadbare fringe that parts as the model walks.
The garment itself bears a dark warning: That if we destroy our oceans, we are also taking part in the destruction of our identity as a society, our histories and stories and small family-oriented memories. However, by calling attention to this connection it also hopes to remind the viewer that the two can also be built up together. By remembering why we hold the ocean so fondly – by reminiscing about all the things we associate with it, maybe we can help motivate ourselves to preserve it for future generations.
