2015, Site-specific Installation. Fringe Arts Bath. Bath.

 

 

A Biscuit Tin of Memories comprises a collaborative interactive exchange between Carolyn and members of the audience, who together relate, recreate and reimagine real-life memories of belonging and belongings.

The imagined biscuit tin from which this narrative sense of belonging tumbles is wrapped in a wedding dress and stored in a suitcase. The work includes an accompanying booklet containing photographs, word-pictures and recorded reminiscences.

 

The inspiration for this work was a series of conversations between Carolyn and an elderly widow, in which her words, memories, thoughts and impressions were transcribed as a monologue and edited into words and pictures.

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“There is something elderly about her now as she switches off the light and closes the door… Most of her memories fit into a biscuit tin… Retreating into the cupboard she is the creator of dreams and recollections, summoning a stockpile…it is where she belongs…”

 

Passing along real and imagined pathways from here to there, what, exactly, do we remember? What was felt? At what point in the journey were we here-and-now, real, and when unconscious, dreaming, living and belonging in memory?

 

Whether memories are scattered and fragmented or remain as a kind of hidden momentum – as with the way the wind blows, or the murmurings of ashes and dust – are concepts almost impossible to describe, yet will be touched upon in the performance. Having tumbled out of the imagined biscuit tin, layers of memories stored within the landscape are brought to life and re-animated, enabling them to wander freely, yet remain.