During this project I have been struck by the paradox of collecting facts/memories for hundreds of years then locking them away to preserve them. However, as the museum owns a large number of extremely old documents the only way to keep them safe is to keep them off site at the Somerset Archives Offices - it's a a quandary for any museum.
Memory and its preservation has long since been a source of fascination in my work. To me, there seems huge links between the preservation of historical documents and our own process of remembering and forgetting. . I have explored this further with the kind help of Winscombe Art Group who agreed to take part in a workshop about memory. I led the group through a number of warming up exercises then I asked them to draw something from their childhood. I did warn the group that this can be quite a frustrating task as the hand does not want to cooperate fully with the minds eye but they were all extremely helpful and committed to the task 100%. When I hold workshops like this I like to ask the artists to discuss their work with me, as I feel the process helps them to unlock their memories further and the group kindly agreed to let me record their memories to share with you. We also allowed perspective to be bent a little and colour to only be used if it was remembered, not guessed. The film that follows is only the memories of one of the group members. However, I have chosen this recording as you can hear frustration several times in the speakers voice when she tries to place her memories on the page. Interestingly if the memories had been recorded at the time of their creation it would, of course, have been much easier to capture a likeness, as in the case of the Axbridge Manuscripts. So the images have diminished over time and, as the number of people who share them reduces, access to them also diminishes - brain or paper, its a container of amazing things!
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The work created for the Muse project will remain in the Museum until 31st October and can be seen from 1pm-4pm daily. Andrea Oke is a Somerset based artist who is fascinated by human behaviour and its links to memory. For more information please to to my websiteArchives
December 2017
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