Tracy DUCRAY

Holding Memory is at the intersection of remembering and forgetting. The text from my own life story is the thread that laces my exhibition together, melding the past with the present; blurring the lines between then and now. I have used my memoir Brutal Legacy, as both subject and object on which to layer and embed my own memories. As I have shredded, cut, threaded, woven and knitted my own words I have immersed myself in paper and text as a metaphor to the ephemerality of memory, with its materiality – its fragility and delicate archival qualities.

It is here that tension forms between creating memory in order to hold onto it – and the fraughtness of holding onto memories that are already blurring and fading. So, just as paper can become torn, stained or faded – so to, do memories become fragmented and distorted, or even lost over time. The vulnerability of the paper serves as a metaphor to the tenuousness of human recollection, reminding us that paper, like memories, are subject to the ravages of time.

© Tracy DUCRAY