Fabricated Memories

Using digital technology and Polaroid film, this portfolio reconstructs memories combining recent images with childhood snapshots. The result are seemingly realistic images of events that never happened but reflect emotions from my childhood.

I was born in England and in 1997, returned to England for five months. During that time I decided to explore my memories of the place where I was born and lived for the first eleven years of my life. On returning to America and looking at my negatives, I realized that I linked my own memories of England to memories of my father who died a year after returning to India from England. I also noted that 1998 was the twenty year anniversary of his death. I wanted my work of England to mark this. The work that has evolved is a reconstruction of memories using parts of snapshots from my childhood and recent images.

I created a small handmade accordion book where the images are presented as Polaroid emulsion transfers to emphasis the fluid nature of memory. Some pages also include text. To emphasize the fact that my father died due to his smoking, the book is covered in paper made from tobacco leaves and is presented in a cigarette box. The paper has been stained with tobacco juice so that the viewer experiences the tobacco through sight, touch and smell. The pages of the book are made from a delicate handmade paper to suggest the images, like life itself, is very fragile.