A bookcase is often used as way to describe how our memories are stored, and in dementia how different types of memories are lost, and others retained. The narrative and factual memories being at the top, and the emotional memories at the bottom. The artist Nathalie Elemento explains her piece Delivrer as an exploration of the process involved in retrieving memories :”memory : the core, the form, the format (or formatting) that we are all required to undergo so that we can better re-transcribe or retransform it. Like immense receptacle libraries, we accumulate that is cultural, emotional, familial, political, that we then have to re-organise. Delivrer can be read not as a box of secrets but as an object to help us remember”. Perhaps three dimensional structures like this can be personalised to create ‘reminders’ of precious memories.
Much is said about the beauty inherent in nature. Having lived in an inner city environment for decades – a chance to live next to fields and gardens brings a constantly changing visual feast of growth and freshly blooming flowers. Although fleeting – the colour, the variety, the growth are qualities that are part of the pleasurable experience. As Neutra (Survival Through Design ) has observed, nature may often be a source of inspiration for designers, but in nature the appearance, its ‘beauty’ is indivisible from its structure and function rather than an additional surface level decoration. The form and appearance develop simultaneously as the plant grows.
I know what I like 