At Peace on The Carpet and Curious in The Garden Pond : Researching and expressing a memory of place

Abstract: My degree project At Peace on The Carpet and Curious in The Garden Pond evolves around the memory of a specific place of my personal past and the issues of translating a poetic inner memory into a concrete outer expression. Thus also relating to the artistic practice and the critical choices made when bringing out ideas as visual communication. The subject of study is the house of my grandparents, which I parted from 17 years ago.Not a notable place in any way: A common Danish house from the 1920s, containing common 1950s interior, which common people used to live their lives in. But none the less an important place to me as an individual, since the place exists in me as a compressed notion of certainemotions and values.I have thus been very interested in the commonness of the phenomena ‘memory of place’. How all of us carry places within us, that we constantly relate back to. Not only places of our early years, but various places that we pass through in our lives. Especially two aspects of the phenomena ‘memory of place’ have appeared as significant to me: As a remembrance of being physically there at that time, which ensures that we understand ourselves as continuous identities existing across the flow of time. But also: The phenomena understood as a tool that structures our personal experiences by constantly creating links between certain insights and the physical context where these insights were achieved. In this connection I have mainly been focusing on the role that the body plays when remembering place. How my memory of place is strongly situational and connected to a tactile and visual sensation of certain materials. I remember lying there on the floor: The sensation of the carpet under my body and the feeling of contemplation. I remember sitting there against the wooden panel wall: The warm material against my back and a feeling of being at peace. And I remember moving through the garden: The greenery passing over/under/around me and the feelings of interest and exploration.