Reconstruction of Memory - Photographer Penelope Thomaidi

Reconstruction of Memory [2007] - Mixed media, various sizes.

Reconstruction of Memory is a research on the double notion of photography: as a proof and as a medium that preserves memories. Police tends to use photography in order to prove facts or identitify, but photography also help us to recall personal memories. But the thing with memory is that it's in a constantly changing situation which frequently transforms reality into subjective fictions. Is there a limit?

This is body of work consists of various mixed media pieces based on scanned pictures from my family's photo album. In these pieces, new images emerge from overlapping layers of souvenir or ID photos. The old photos were either digitally printed on transparent material or manually transferred to textile or paper and then stitched together.

Most of the original pictures were taken before I was born and the work is inspired in narrations of family stories that became some kind of mythology through the repetition of their narration by some family member. Same as myths, the same stories might have different versions when narrated by different people.

The different pieces were presented in an installation / happening. Inside the exhibition space old furniture was placed in order to intensify a familiar home ambient. Arriving visitors were told that this was my family's real furniture. They were also offered home-made liquor and were invited to celebrate the occasion of my mother’s birthday. At the end of the presentation the truth was revealed: the whole installation and celebration was a fake.