A memory is a fickle thing. It transforms as time passes, reshaping and rebuilding itself within the memory’s keeper. We picture the details of a memory: the wallpaper in a room, the scraps of fabric on our grandmother’s work table, the aged books in the kitchen that hold our family recipes. But just like the objects themselves, these details age, they fade and reshape as the years go by and we desperately try to hold onto their richness. Yet the details run like water through our fingers, and we are left with the residue, piecing together the scraps to preserve our memories, our history, our identity—the truth of who we are.
In Heaven Gallery’s exhibition “Remnants,” artists Nancy Sayavong and Gabriella Willenz transform the space with intimate fragments of their own family histories. One definition of the word remnant is “a surviving trace.” Within the exhibition, both artists interrogate what pieces of our memories survive, what traces are shown, and what “truth” exists within the objects that hold them.
The Israel-born Gabriella Willenz’s portion of the installation consists of objects that once belonged to her grandmother, trinkets and furnishings that are core memories of her childhood. A wooden chair with an embroidered seat cushion sits next to a table with a signed Marc Chagall book; another table holds a meat grinder and a food-ration book from Israel; a vintage radio, Passover plates, and small dog figurines sit on a shelf. These objects can be seen as relics of Willenz’s family history, objects plucked out of memories and set inside a gallery space. However, something is amiss. The Passover plates have stars adorning the edges, but on close inspection they are stickers. At the bottom of some of the table and chair legs, there is visible tape—neon-green tape acting like “spikes” in theater, marking where set pieces should go. These seemingly precious and vintage objects are not what they seem: they are each a replica of an original, made by the artist in collaboration with Berkeley Rep’s prop supervisor. They are, in essence, props, “fakes.” The artist’s grandmother did own a book signed by Marc Chagall, but the copy in the installation is exactly that—just a copy, with the signature made by the artist herself. In fact, the book next to it doesn’t even have full pages. These objects were simply made to resemble the original objects from Willenz’s memories.
The question Willenz is posing here is, does it matter? Does it matter to the viewer that these objects are not authentic? If the journal of fabric scraps sitting on the dresser was not actually created and used by the artist’s grandmother? What value is stripped from the object by not having lived out its life and function? For me, this journal of fabric scraps was incredibly special. Being from the Midwest, quilting and embroidery remnants could always be found at my granny’s house and on my mother’s dresser. I instantly connected with this. This object gave me an entry point, a way to enter Willenz’s experience and memories through my own. If this object is “fake,” does it really change its meaning? And for who? The artist may not hold this journal replica to be as precious as the “real” thing, but the viewer projects their own meanings and memories, transforming each object in the installation into conduits of their own identities, giving them new life and meaning.
And what does it mean to replicate, to recreate? Just as memories have details missing, so do these objects. Is a memory not a replica of the original moment, a recreation of it influenced by our own perspective? That is what is so interesting about this staged “set” of objects, but creating this installation, Willenz has created another “set” of the originals that could be, in theory, passed on to others in her family, therefore extending the imprint of her memories. Before, only one person could possess the grandmother’s candleholder. Now, two people can have this object(s) as family heirloom. Does it matter who has the original if both objects hold the memory?
Like Willenz with her installation, Nancy Sayavong confronts memories held within the home. Instead of these memories being held within specific objects, in Sayavong’s work they extend within the physical structure of the house itself: its walls, its support beams, its archways. For her, she sees the structure of the home/house as a body, with bones, memory and an interior/exterior life. Elements and details of Sayavong’s pieces in the show reflect her background growing up within a working-class Laotian American family. On one side of the exhibition, a pink archway extends off the wall. On the other side of the space, a photograph of her family’s Buddhist altar hangs above our heads. Nearby, structural beams built by the artist stand erect on the ground. These support beams look like they could be in anyone’s house. However, the inside of these beams have photographs transferred onto the surface, leaving a literal imprint of the life lived inside the house on this structural element.
In a home, what is constructed, what is revealed or covered up? In a family, what is staged and what is “created”? For Sayavong, who has worked in house construction, there is intention behind what is covered up when building a home, but there are always remnants left of the lives lived there before us, whether they are seen or unseen. Old photographs may be left in a basement, etchings on a door marking the heights of growing children remain in the wood. The people that lived in the home may be gone, but the home holds in the life they lived. Sayavong’s work poignantly asks, what have these walls seen? And will a fresh coat of paint truly cover it up?
In “Remnants,” both artists’ work pointedly remind us that memories aren’t set in stone, and they remain with us in different ways. They are held within the objects that are ingrained within our memories, whether or not the objects are “authentic.” They are kept within the walls of a home, no matter who is living in the home at the time being, stacking time and moments together like layers of paint. Although vastly different experiences form (and reform) individual memories, the texture in the details can be teased out, pulled out and stretched like taffy until their “realness” loses meaning. Fact or fiction aside, perhaps it is the personal connection, the meaning we project onto it that gives it value and purpose.
“Remnants” at Heaven Gallery, 1550 North Milwaukee, on view through November 27.
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