Amelia Gish

Artist Statement

Under my bed are three shoe boxes. Each of them are stuffed with pieces of my memory: a piece of orange confetti, a tiny scribbled note, some string that was once tied around a gift, a bus ticket. One of the boxes requires a piece of duct tape to stay closed. Collecting these tangible memories preserves them before they are lost. 

"Memory Threads" is a textile-based photographic work that explores the fragility of memory through embroidery techniques and manipulations on the surface of the image. Each photograph is printed onto fabric, embroidered and stitched together into a grid. These images are meant to resemble memories, maybe a flash of movement or a set of hands just out of focus. I work into the images based on instinct, drawing inspiration from the textures in the images and from my own memory journal. Some photographs have their most descriptive features obscured by the textile techniques, as they are obscured in my memories. These interventions resemble the different ways I record my memories, whether it's by saving notes, text messages, quotes or journal entries. 

"Memory Threads" also takes inspiration from my own family history and American craft arts. Both of my grandmothers were engaged in textile work, quilting being their main practice. My photographs being sewn together in a grid is loosely inspired by their own block quilts that have been passed down. Using embroidery techniques and fabric to represent memory is also inspired by the broader historical context of quilting practices. Quilt making is often a group effort and the finished blanket is often representative of a community. They are made from materials like old clothes that come from the community itself and they are assembled together as a community. By printing my images and assembling them together using similar practices to quilting, I am creating a textile which also speaks to a bigger concept and attempts to represent a broader understanding of memory.

A mixed-media photographic work, "Memory Threads" explores the impermanence of memory; how they distort, fade and slip through our fingers. 

IMAGE GALLERY: MEMORY THREADS

Click through to enlarge and view individual artworks from Amelia's thesis project.