“Exploring Our Potential: Remembering Not to Forget” Summary Statement

The theme of my final studio project is a scientific and natural journey through the world of memory by viewing photographs of our brain, parts of our brain activated in memory usage, and relating these parts to the natural world. The mind and how memory can be viewed through photographs of the mind is the subject of my artist’s book because the brain is relatively unexplored, yet it is so essential to our memory and to our survival. Most of the images included in my artist’s book are normally used for scientific and medical reasons, so the book rests within a medical chart. Blender-pen technique was used on the cover to integrate the photograph used with the cover of the book, as well as to give it a faded appearance. Scrapbooking letters were used on the cover, as well as toward the end of the book, to give the text a raised appearance as well as to set the text apart from the rest of the page. Several magnetic resonance images (MRIs) were used, which are photographs of the brain. Different MRI’s highlight the parts of the brain that are being used during memory tasks, and my project showcases these parts through the use of transparencies as well as through various photographs. The images are grouped together to showcase the deterioration of memory. The progression of the photographs and my book moves first from photographs of the healthy adult brain, and how it processes memory, to (with the transition made by the 6-part sequential faded photograph to show how our memories of certain events fade over time) photographs of an unhealthy adult brain. Patient A has Alzheimer’s disease, and Patient B has Korsakoff’s syndrome (the syndrome that Jimmy had in “The Lost Mariner”). The photographs then shift focus from photographs of the microscopic workings of the mind, to city lights, and to an image of space. This progression of similar-looking photographs is important to showcase how, like the system of space, the specific processes by which the system of memory functions remain a mystery to us.