Sophia Schlock

 
“My aim in this project is to reanimate memory and a collection through recreation, beginning with an online archive. This website presents an archive of 35mm photographs. The home page acts as an index of images, each presenting triggers for memories from the place where the image was conceived. Followed by an additional set of images which have been sought in everyday surroundings to replicate or replace the memory of a feeling, thought, aesthetic and emotion. The online archive provides longevity and displays an on-going fascination with looking for the past in the present.
The inability to recreate an authentic tangible memory is further explored in the physical archive. Casts of objects ‘remembered’ from the house shown on the website are cast in clay, only these are negative casts presenting the shadow of the object. They imitate the objects but are never authentic to the original, housed in display boxes within a triptych of archival solander boxes. The urge is to contain and preserve, but ultimately what is being held on to is merely an unsatisfactory imitation.”

Sophie McKenzie Baker
‘Phantasmagoria of Memory – Integral pieces of a life story.’

“Phantasmagoria of Memory, book and photographic prints are an inspiration from my dissertation question; ‘What is the future for the traditional family photograph album, is the method and approach of collecting and storing family photographs changing as the digital era spreads?’

 
This project started from a small tin, a tin of hidden memories. This tin represents a life still alive today, not dead. It’s an old biscuit tin bursting full of old and faded photographs, postcards and negatives; a treasure chest now unearthed. I collected these negatives and gave new life to these discarded memories, using liquid light. Keeping this faded dream like quality to the newborn photographs; I used certain type of brush strokes, whilst painting on the emulsion to gain this technique.”