Words

 
 

A handmade card given to me by a teenage sweetheart - the one who got away. A scrappy note sent for a birthday, by my uncle who passed away. An extract from my diary, when I was eight years of age. The first love letter I received from my adopted sister, when she came to live with our family. These words, these pieces of paper, these handwritten marks hold so much meaning for me. And yet, for the person looking in, they are just lovely words on a page. They hold little meaning or personality.

This ‘Kaleidoscope of Words’ project took my sentimental artefacts and combined them with Vilém Flusser’s musings on the “gesture of writing”. Taking his claim that words written in lines “call historical consciousness into the light”, I wanted to illustrate that a disorientated and kaleidoscopic vision of my precious pages drained them of personal history and sentimental value.