Untying the knot: memory and forgetting in contemporary print work

Memory has long been talked of in terms of imprint and impression, terms fundamental to the language of printmaking. The sense of the mind as a receptive surface upon which experience is imprinted is related to classical metaphors of memory, in particular the Platonic account of memory as an impression made in wax. The dominant influence of this model in Western thought has not only informed thinking about memory itself, but has also shaped us culturally. This is evident in the way in which we privilege those objects, such as the photograph, that seem to embody the metaphor of impression. The problematic nature of this metaphor is apparent when we reflect on the binary it establishes: if memory is deemed the preservation of the past in material form, whether in an object or within the brain, then by extension, forgetting is associated with the decay of that material form. But at the heart of this dichotomy of presence/absence there is a paradox: if forgetting entails a true erasure, how is it that we can be aware that we have forgotten? An alternative view of memory can be found within the work of philosophers Paul Ricoeur and Henri Bergson, and in contemporary neuroscience. Culturally this metaphor of memory as-impression has been challenged by artists such as Tacita Dean, Christian Boltanski, and Paul Ogier. Through an often-subversive use of artforms that appear native to this metaphor- print and photo media - they each engage with memory outside of this false binary. Memory is seen as something complex, dynamic and fragmentary, recollected through an active process of putting together; of re-membering. Similarly, forgetting is not singularly destructive, but also a thing of latency, possibility and potential. These artists question the ways in which art is able to relate to and embody the past.