letter through memory is a collection of ephemera - letters, notes, card and photos sent to me over the years. In this sculpture the archive(fonds) acts as a pathway to not only connect the present and the past but as a tool to negotiate one’s own feelings / one’s accountability in relation to unresolved conflicts and lost friendships and one's ability to remember. When I organized the archive by date as best I could I realized that there were many stories—things left unsaid. I decided to write back to each entry, to try to retrieve memories, to resolve conflict, to unpack relationships and to contemplate my own lived life in this timeline. 

My approach to writing back was casual – meaning that the letters were written as a conversation but not edited to be an artwork. I did not check on tenses and sometimes I strayed from what was written. As time progressed my investment in the relationship with the physical ephemera went deeper and my responses were longer and more thoughtful to the extent that in the end I wanted to revisit the earlier letters as I was feeling like I had not given them enough attention.

Alongside the personal investment, the physical paper and it’s material presence seem all the more relevant in this digital age. 

left side – writing back / right side – letters, cards, notes & photos
typed on a IBM Selectric II Typewriter by my sister Donna