The Past Within

"The Past Within" is an installation that explores how fleeting and lost memories remain deeply embedded in my present identity. In every aspect of my life, I've come to realize that experiences are surprisingly impermanent. Trying to hold on to past experiences proves impossible, same with attempting to preserve precious memories. It's like I'm trying to hold onto important bits of my past – the moments of laughter, tears, hopes, and heartbreaks, but they keep slipping away. Yet, despite my no longer recalling them with any vivid sense, the imprint of these memories remain an integral part of who I am and help to dictate who I will become. 

A secondary exploration of this work looks into my complex relationship with time. The awareness of how time passes, propelling me forward into the future and shaping my experiences, is a constant source of anguish. To me, time is a relentless force that serves as a constant reminder of my own mortality, which I'm reluctant to confront. This work is a confrontation. It is a vision of my struggle against time, an attempt to create permanence in a transient world. 

The installation captures a moment, frozen in time, depicting my perception of how my life unfolds. At its heart are sculptures crafted from insulation foam. Stable structures that capture my memories and pause the process of decay. I've shaped and altered them to resemble melting rockery, embodying time in this snapshot. 

My choice of insulation foam as the primary material was deliberate. I was particularly interested in its expansive nature, resembling organic growth. It expands several inches as it cures over a few hours. I can guide the general contours of the growth, but it also expands on its own, beyond my complete control. This process embodies the aspects of time with which I am most uncomfortable: the messiness and the feeling that things are out of my control. The overall form also displays how time acts as both the glue that holds everything together and the factor that leads to decay. 

This quality of time finds a perfect analogy in the medium of insulation foam. When the foam is cut into, it reveals that it is not as solid as it appears from the outside. Rather it is porous, filled with countless pockets of air. This is representative of how my experiences and memories happen within the context of time. Each individual pocket of air symbolizes a single experience or memory that I’m trying to hold on to.  

Embedded within the central foam structure are life cast limbs, shattered and disintegrating into nothing. These fragments, literal pieces of myself, are symbolic of the process through which my memories merge into my mind. Though they are being forgotten, my body naturally remembers and carries these previous experiences with me. As they dissolve to nothing, they fuse into the environment of the installation, the space between the structures, which is my mind. The complete mindscape which is created by both the forms of the sculptures and the intervening spaces is everything to me. My stored memories, my contemplations, my existence.  

Along with the limbs are various exotic flowers, symbols of the fleeting nature of decay. Like blossoms that only open for a brief instant, experiences burst into existence, vibrant and full of life, only to fade, leaving behind memories as precious and delicate as the pedals of a flower. These flowers are also personal reminders of precious memories that have special significance for me. Hopefully, with enough care, I can hold on to these memories for a bit longer.