Textile Tests and Memory

Involuntary memory is a sub-component of memory that occurs when everyday cues evoke recollections of the past without deliberate effort. Voluntary memory then, is characterized by a deliberate effort to recall the past. Both ends of the spectrum are often tied to objects. These scraps contain a memory and are therefore physical and mental vessels of recollection.

After testing hole-punching tools (scissors, dull knives, a seam ripper, forks...) on scraps of cotton, I singed the edges and worked rain-dampened soil into the slightly resistant fibres. Suffused with physical evidences of place and process, I'm curious about the memory of these objects. It may be in materialism that I entrust my caches of memory, but the fallible, imprecise and vulnerable nature of memory results in our collective predisposition (and often desire) to be reminded and to recall.