I am currently rewriting this article. Its main contents were developed over two years ago. Back then, I argued that memory is mainly a narrative. I reached that conclusion because a particular frame of mind and its resulting methodology led me to believe so. Yet, nowadays, as I walk through the living room and kitchen of my parents’ old house, I cannot avoid questioning my previous beliefs: is memory really a narrative, a creative act?
For lack of a better word, I could say that my parents were hoarders. I see the mount of garbage that they accumulated over their lives and I cannot avoid the feeling that somehow, by excavating through their piles of old tickets, used toothbrushes, stockings and neckties from the ‘60s and all those mementos they filled their home with, I would certainly get an experience of memory.
Back then I wanted to learn how to make films. I thought that maybe I could learn to make films by remembering, by giving visibility to a memory. And maybe because of this desire to make films, I began to understand memory through filmmaking and vice versa. As such, my understanding of memory comes from experience and experimentation through film and my understanding of filmmaking comes from reflecting on memory.
As such, this research is simply a record of experiments and the reflections that these experiments have produced. Some conclusions replicate what has been found in other disciplines that study memory. Some findings are simple, almost obvious. Some other findings are new to me and may very well be far from a universal truth or understanding of memory. Nevertheless, I deliver this text hoping that readers’ wisdom will be able to see beyond the holes and fill them with their own knowledge.
continue to: Remembering through writing