THE FETISHIZATION OF MEMORY | THE WORSHIP OF TRAUMA

Abstract

Memory is the detritus of experience we all carry inside. It is the driving force to which we navigate the external world. It is almost godlike in its overarching presence in our lives. The idea that memory largely informs our human experience is not new. However, since the rise of internet culture there has been an identifiable change in the specific value of memory that is placed on lived-experience. The more traumatic an experience is the more likely it will be fetishized, and the more the victim will be elevated as just that.. For better or worse, it becomes their identity. As a survivor, I use both my experience and observations of the interplay of memory and trauma to underpin my art practice and expand the concepts that my work seeks to question.