Since Unit 2 I’ve been exploring the idea of translating memories through material interactions, interviews, oral history recordings, storytelling, mark-making and image-making. I also explored the systematic arrangement of short narratives and the limits/possibilities of using different mediums to convey a story. At the end of this unit, my research question was: What is the role of graphic communication design in recording, and translating memory, oral history and personal narratives in the context of ongoing dematerialisation?
During the first part of Unit 3, I focused on the idea of exploring memories of commensality, with a growing focus on vanishing “endangered” book formats such as the recipe book. I also explored methods of imagemaking through using my own personal library of unrelated images to illustrate different contexts.
Towards the end of projection 1, I started to focus on gathering memories of cultural convergence through food sharing, this proved a really insightful focus, as the language and tone of the memories/anecdotes became more specific being tied to certain contexts and cultures. I started to question the issue of language and how it shapes the way we interpret the world. I also started thinking more about linguistic translation as some of my interviews where conducted in English while others where in Spanish.
This led me to the concept of ‘Lacuna’ or Lexical gaps, in other words, concepts developed in one language which cannot be directly translated into another without the use or two or more words. This was in the context of exploring memories, recipes and experiences that cannot be easily translated between cultures. After a few iterations interviewing people both from Colombia and the UK, I focused on the following question: Can you think of a time where you had a meal with others which also connects to your own culture? Most of the stories collected through this final question relied heavily on terms which cannot be directly translated between languages.
In projection 2, I want to go deeper into the idea of cultural convergence through language but with a shifted focus in my exploration of memory towards a more personal, almost biographical approach. My aim with this final project is to explore visually and physically the nature of collecting memories around language and how those shape our identities and perceptions of the world. Locating myself as a British-Colombian person, situated between 2 cultures, pondering around the memories and linguistical associations of my childhood in Colombia, in contrast with a new vernacular vocabulary encountered as a young person, having lived in the UK for 10 years, filling the lexicon gaps that exist between my two languages. This project emerges from my own challenges trying to express myself in common situations in my mother tongue, realising I had adopted many linguistic expressions which couldn’t be translated literally. At the same time, discovering early on, that there were many emotions and ideas I could not express naturally in English and had to adapt to this new understanding of self and being. I want to test the idea of closing cultural and linguistically gaps through graphic communication design.
Notes on Imagemaking
I’ve also been developing my visual language further by focusing more on the processes discovered through Projections 1. This has led me to think of further posibilites for using this image making technique and applying it to different mediums such as animation and more material applications, such as screenprinting. There’s an opportunity here to explore the idea of layering and its relation to memories themselves.
Annotated Bibliography (IN PROGRESS)
Below is my annotated bibliography in progress, which I hope provides more insight into my thinking. It it’s in progress as my project focus is redirected, yet remains with a strong emphasis on materiality, bookmaking and storytelling.
Sandford, S. (2018) The Dream is a Fragment: Freud, Transdisciplinarity and Early German Romanticism (2016), Radical Philosophy. Available at: https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/the-dream-is-a-fragment (Accessed: 06 February 2024).
As the author discuses the fragmentary nature of dreams, as proposed by Freud, I draw a parallel with the fragmentary nature of memory and recollection itself. My own intentions to record and collect memories are incomplete, fragmented, partially coherent. Nevertheless, there’s a completeness that comes from the idea of interpreting the fragment in light of Sandford’s perspective. Exploring this idea of fragmentation, in and through design, or ‘the Bruchstück as ‘the detached piece pure and simple … the residue of a broken ensemble’ (Lacoue-Labarthe et al., 1988), could provide a new lens, not only conceptual but practical, to engage with memories at a time of continuous dematerialisation.
Vallejo, I. and Whittle, C. (2023) Papyrus: The invention of books in the ancient world. London: Hodder.
The book, in its physical form, is inherently connected to the evolution of memory. It acts as a thread to understand humanity across generations, echoing Vallejo’s words: “books are extensions of memory, the only witnesses – imperfect, ambiguous, but irreplaceable – of the times and places living memory cannot reach.”(Vallejo, 2023). This is why I feel a strong affinity for delving into the study and expression of memory through the physical book, as a tangible format, in a way that allows us to reflect on what makes us human in an era of rapid dematerialisation. In a time where communities, jobs, friendships, and social interactions, essentially identities, are predominantly woven and expressed through digital spaces, my work aims not to alter the course of facts but to invite the audience to reflect on the book as a “form-giving” vehicle for memory—a reimagining of the book as a medium for shaping memory.
Jönsson, H., Michaud, M. and Neuman, N. (2021) ‘What is commensality? A critical discussion of an expanding research field’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(12), p. 6235. doi:10.3390/ijerph18126235.
What if the act of “commensality” or simply put, of sharing food, is not entirely positive as I previously assumed? In this journal, the authors present an extended analysis of the nature of commensality, focusing on debunking the idea that all commensality produces unity, exploring how food sharing can be used to establish hierarchies and even to alienate different people groups. This antithesis to my original argument towards commensality as a place for unity is compelling, prompting me to reflect on the nature of my enquiry from a more critical point of view. Although the social structures around sharing food can be sometimes alienating, the uniqueness of food as a collective human experience makes me think that there’s an element to be explored around the power of sharing the table.
Weinmayr, E. (2014) ‘Essay: One Publishes to Find Comrades’, in The Visual Event, an education in appearances. Leipzig: Spector Books, pp. 50–59.
The idea of establishing meaning through collective effort is not new, yet, the author’s premise presents a compelling approach to the act of publishing. Co-creation stands as a somehow countercultural practice at a time where design practice seems marked by independence and perhaps isolation, specially after the widespread introduction of remote working through the pandemic. By considering publishing not as “the end of a process” but as “the way to initiate a social process” (Weinmayr, 2014), the author challenges the very structure of the design process, proposing a way of working which is more in touch with the very people who have a stake in the process of communication.
I reflect on this subject as I embark on the creation of a recipe book through a partly collaborative process, where the book itself is an echo of the process rather than the end in itself.
Marinetti, F.T., Brill, S. and Chamberlain, L. (2014) The Futurist Cookbook. London: Penguin books.
An eclectic and comical, yet serious reinterpretation of the cookbook as a medium for communication. Marinetti’s manifesto is full of wit and playfulness, yet, by the structure itself it holds a gravitas around the group’s ideals and practice. The idea of exploring/ subverting traditional mediums and publication forms might seem “tired” at first glance, but at a time like ours, where more and more physical formats are becoming obsolete, there’s an angle which can yet be explored. Perhaps not the pursue of preservation in a direct sense, but working towards a practice that can make the most of what was in order to engage in a conversation about what could be.
Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective. 2024. The Photographers Gallery London. Exhibition (viewed January 29, 2024)
Moriyama’s work is all about context and recontextualisation, edition and curation become as important as the images themselves, because the individual images exist as part of a whole. I find his work thought-provoking and somehow parallel to my investigation of memory, quoting Moriyama: “To focus on reality or be concerned with memory, choices that, at first glance, seem opposite are, in fact, identical twins for me.” (Moriyama, 2024). The body if work is full of nuances and unanswered questions, his use of publication as a vehicle for making sense of the whole through fragments is unequivocal. Through this timely exhibition, I’ve been able to get a glimpse of the trans-disciplinary nature of graphic communication design and the attributes that arrangement, edition and curation play in the creation of a piece of work.
Ferro Astaiza, E. (2021) Llamado de Guerra: Archivo Sonoro del Conflicto: La Transmisión del Asalto / Esteban Ferro Astaiza ; Ada María León ; Laura Bernal (infinitos lugares)., Details for: Llamado de guerra: Archivo sonoro del conflicto: La transmisión del asalto / ’ IDARTES catalog. Available at: https://bibliotecagaleriasantafe.idartes.gov.co/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=94184 (Accessed: 07 February 2024).
Colombian plastic artist Laura Bernal, also known as Infinitos Lugares, presents an interesting take on the idea of the physical book as a tool for encapsulating subjective experiences through journaling and anecdote. By using discarded dictionaries and encyclopaedias as the main material for her books, she combines words and images, recontextualising their meaning through a purely material process grounded in the physicality of the book as a medium. Her work for Llamado de Guerra: Archive Sonoro del Conflicto is particularly relevant, as she explores visual translations of audio recordings of the radio coverage of Bogota’s Palace of Justice attack in 1985. I find resonance in the way she takes things that are meant to be disposed of, books in disuse, paper ephemera, exploring contemporary themes through a very tangible design process.
Vormittag, L. (2023) ‘Practice is (Still) Critical at UAL Central Saint Martins’, Practice is (Still) Critical. Practice is (Still) Critical, 9 November.
Placing an emphasis on image-making as a medium for “bringing to light” concerns and challenges of a community is compelling and thought provoking, as well as highly relevant to my own inquiry around exploring vanishing publishing formats as catalyst for contemporary dialogues. A socially engaged practice is not something that as designers we should be removed from, but a philosophy which needs to be at the core of how and why we design. We have all faced this question when tackling a project, facing a mountain of user generated input and research: “what do I do with all of this now?”. And it’s here where Louise’s approach challenges me personally to engage with the design process in a more cohesive way, where the input and the output are not two separate ends but become more of a loop that feed each other.
Eisenreich, U. (2024) Uta Eisenreich. Available at: http://www.utaeisenreich.xyz/ (Accessed: 9 February 2024).
Uta’s work centres around the relationship between through and reality. Her practice also approaches elements related to memory and it’s relation to materiality. By using domestic elements, she creates visual compositions and narratives that constantly play between reality and the intangible. Her project, “A not B” in collaboration with designer Julia Born, presents the idea of the tableaus as a playground to evoke meaning through composition. I feel particularly drawn at her use of domestic objects as the main “characters” of her narratives, as it connects with my original investigations around recording the everyday. Her work is underpinned by translation, from one medium to another, from play to book to installation. Through the use of tableau photography, composition and labelling, the designer engages the viewer in a journey that borders with surrealism, reinforcing her original intention of revealing the relationship between through and reality.