Date of Award

Spring 5-30-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Digital Media

First Advisor

Nora N. Khan

Second Advisor

Shona Kitchen

Third Advisor

Aly Ogasian

Abstract

Derived from transitions, my artistic practice is an act of condolence for the transient presence that takes time and indulges every process as an acceptance of loss.

Over the years, I have moved between distinctive regions and cultures, only to be disoriented by mementos that are residues of a seemingly in- accessible past. What remains is to witness the vanished moments that evoke associated memories. I tend to solidify the volatile condition of transition by carving a temporary fragment on a permanent surface to make the ephemeral, eternal. The attempt to preserve a transitory phenomenon through archives by utilizing digital photography and various mediums inevitably leads to an alteration of memory. The intrinsic presence disappears when it is retained, duplicated, and remembered.

Retrospection makes memories fade. The process of recall supplants experience with imagery, often tied to a photo or another cue, that displaces the initial experience. I understand memory to be an ephemeral transition constructed and reconstructed through one’s sensory perception.

Accepting that transitions are inevitable, I released my eagerness to grasp every reminiscence of the bygone past. Through the properties of olfaction, which is persistent in the form of memory but cannot be stored or duplicated, I articulate and reconstruct ephemeral autobiographical memories through scent.

I focus on insignificant transitions, which are often taken for granted, unnoticed, and forgotten. Between those transitions, I am engaged in meticulously dissecting the exquisite fragments of each moment. My practice is a personal memoir that ultimately characterizes specific correlations between various autobiographical retrieval cues and the level of modification to memories. Operating under the premise that odor-evoked memories are persistent, I use the characteristics of scented material in association with visual cues to determine the level of alteration in memories.

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