Thato Koto

Memory, (noun); the ability, power or process of recalling or repeating what has been learnt and experienced, especially through associative processes. Imagination (noun); the act or power of creating a mental image of something that is not visible to the senses or has never been fully seen in reality before. ‘It is this that Mongale has in mind when she says she is able to ‘insert herself into history’, forge new worlds and document the presents.’ The ability to insert oneself into history disrupts past events or even reshapes the past and its memories. ‘The origin of a story is always an absence,’ says novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. This is a memory existing at the plane of the imaginary or fantasy. Memory includes elements of fantasy. Memory is not tangible. We are capable of recreating and retelling stories and it is always imagined, remembered and spoken of differently. This then makes memory constructed and subjective. This work aims to discuss the disruptions that are possible when retrieving stored information and the putting together of a claim about the past by the means of a framework as photographs work both to enact and destroy mnemonic experiences. This work also aims to discuss the manner in which memory spoken of, breaks the fixed ways of an image, images no longer hold a memory to a (singular) moment.

Email // Instagram // Website // Youtube