Stitching together the imagery of the House and scenes of time and space: In the House of Memory with Marina Cruz
Did they ever exist? Something unreal seeps into the reality of the recollections that are on the borderline between our own personal history and an indefinite pre-history, in the exact place where, after us, the childhood home comes to life in us.[1]
The house is a space people are most familiar with. It not only offers shelter from the elements, but also stands as a spiritual symbol: as an actual space in our daily lives, or the intangible House in our life memories. This symbol is like an obscure grey zone connecting a physical place to a secret corner in our minds. In his book The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard guides his readers on a journey to learn how to “read a house” or “read a room”. The memory of the house we were born and live in, especially, is ingrained into the body, and internalized into a set of organic habits. House, the simplest imagery, serves as a starting point that pulls us into the region of unconsciousness.
Returning to the hometown of memories
People, events and experiences of the past leave special impressions in our minds. Stories and emotions interwoven in the House are the essence of life and memories. Marina Cruz (1982－), a young female artist from the Philippines, repeatedly used difference imageries of the House as themes for different projects. Through these artworks, she took us for a walk down memory lane, prompting us to think about the space in which we live and grow, and to rekindle the link between the recollections of the inner mind and self-existence. The artwork “Recollections” draws inspiration from a collection of old photographs the artist discovered. These photos, shot two generations ago, create a storybook of her own family history, a memoir that transcends generations.
For Cruz, her creations are a private and unique type of language. She expresses deep feelings that are either still unconscious or difficult to convey with words. Cruz tries to find the House in her memory through her works, and then recreates the images on her canvas. Past experience and present thoughts entwine, and are illustrated meticulously stroke by stroke with a flair of intuition and fantasy, thus displaying the nostalgia and emotions deep in the artist’s memories. Tables, chairs, tea tables and furniture in the living room; cabinets, books and toys in the storage room; mirrors, portraits and photos on the walls all make appearances in Cruz’s artworks. These common items, combined with the sounds, warmth, and ambiance in the picture display Cruz’s unique memories of her family. The artist also employs various types of strokes, leaves marks of dripped oils, uses melancholic shades and an overly clean emptiness to create an unfamiliar, distance visual atmosphere. Here time is compressed and frozen into a model of space: the House that was once lived in is transformed into a somewhat familiar yet distance “scenery”. Mysterious, dim shadows flow about, ethereal as a slice of time or a freeze frame in a dream.
One of Cruz’s exhibition was entitled “Home is the place that you will leave”. In the exhibition she made a descriptive revisit of the House she grew up in. This emotional conflict stems from intense memory and attachment of the space of the old House. Because the House/Home will always be there, so we can “eventually leave” without looking back; yet the unspoken context is that we “eventually return”, we just don’t know when. For Cruz, she looks back into the past by summoning past images when she is creating a project, and this is the way she returns home. As time goes by, the space of the House begins to change in our memories: what was once so familiar is now slightly foreign. But through the House she constructed with layers of brush strokes, Cruz leads us into scenes in which layers of consciousness blend into each other. We find ourselves in a dark corner in our minds, engaged in an unique conversation with experiences in reality. In the long journey of life, if there is a hometown which carries common memories and preserves trans-generational ones, that is, for Cruz, Home.
Stitching together memory and imagination
Cruz’s stubbornness towards the past may be because she misses her grandfather. The day before young Cruz’s fifth birthday, her grandfather told her that she would receive a gift. Unfortunately, her grandfather passed away suddenly the next day. Little Cruz never knew what her gift was because of her grandfather’s sudden departure. This birthday gift will forever remain a mystery, thus Cruz paints as if she is trying to figure out the truth of her memories. By tirelessly putting together random pieces of memories, she sketches out the outlines of imagination in scattered time.
Things change. And for Cruz, creation is a means of mental preparation. Preparing to reacquaint, to collect snippets of life and begin the journey of seeking. The artist took many photos of little dresses handmade by Cruz’s grandmother for her twin daughters, Cruz’s mother and aunt. Twins are often associated with concepts such as conjoined twins or dual self. They are independent individuals yet closely bonded by blood. The artist places the symmetrical dresses side by side, creating a double-frame display in order to imply the symbiotic and contrasting concept in fate, which is also an important visual motif of Cruz’s works. In the “Un/Fold”series, Cruz photographed the pairs of identical dresses, then attached the photographs onto a wood board and added notes onto the photographs. By annotating the photographs, the artist overlaps/adds/participates in the family story of three generations. And with the unique delicate touch of female artists, Cruz created a narrative different from traditional history.
The Philippines’ history of colonization dates back to as early as the 16th century. After becoming independent after the World War II, the country had enjoyed a few periods of rapid economical growth, even entering the list of most affluent Asian countries. However, the unstable political situation eventually stumped the growth. The patterns and styles of the little dresses in Cruz’s exhibition reflect not only proof of the Philippine’s prosperous times, but also various influences from different colonizing countries. The dresses displayed in the “Un/Fold” series should be of the same size originally, yet visitors will find some were altered to fit other sisters (who were taller or bigger). Traces of mending, altering and color-fading of the fabric caused by washing done by their grandmother/mother indirectly yet appropriately reflect the prosperity and decline of society and economic situations in the Philippines. Here the garments are not only basic necessities in life, but also a metaphoric symbol loaded with meaning. Using the cultural vocabulary internalized by the garments as the language of narration in her creations have become another characteristic of Cruz’ works.
In another collection, “Embroidered Landscape”, Cruz enlarged and printed the photographs of the dresses onto canvas in order to display a sense of nostalgia through the stains and wear and tear on the fabric. She then embroidered childlike patterns onto the dresses on canvas with brightly-colored threads. For this collection, the artist combined photography, digital printing, and hand embroidery, which alludes to what Roland Barthes mentioned in his book, La Chambre Claire, or Camera Lucida, when he was discussing the meaning of photography:
By the mark of something, the photograph is no longer "anything whatever". [2]
Be it the bits and pieces of memories written on the photos, or the hand-embroidered flora and fauna, little houses and parachutes, they all symbolize the people, images and symbols in the artist’s family story. The writing/embroidery provides a link between the photographs and the present self, therefore the photos would not only belong in the past. The work per se is the rebirth and extension of personal experiences of growing up that belongs to the grandmother/mother/aunt and the artist herself. It becomes the medium used to discover the artist’s heritage, a linkage between the artist’s personal memories and family history. The little dresses, which were once worn, were stored in the closets for a long time, just like an underground river which seems hidden and confined yet freely flows about. Years later, with her embroidering hands, Cruz embarks on a journey to awake the internal memories of the family, and engage in a conversation with the metaphors deep in her subconscious. Through this journey the memories will flow endlessly like a spring, beginning from the tip of the needle, which goes back and forth through the fabric, connecting into lines, then forming planes, and transforms the storybook-like illustrations into details of the memories.
How long can memories keep? As Cruz strengthens the link between herself and her family with her artworks, memories flow freely from the pen to the words, from the needle to the fabric. The fear of forgetting prompts the artist to repeat stroke after stroke, thread after thread; and by embroidering the garments with needle and thread, the artist can stitch together the memory/imagination of time and space, until something is etched in her heart forever.
“In the House of Memory with Marina Cruz”: unique meanings of the traces of life
History no longer develops linearly – be it reversible or irreversible, circular or entangled; instead, history exists in discontinuity, clusters. History has become a type of geography, and recalling is an act of excavation.[3]
Items preserve memories, and memories help preserve the items. This delicate connection between item and memory allows the relationships between man and item, man and memory to carry on. In the exhibition “In the House of Memory with Marina Cruz”, Cruz employs innovative methods and cleverly integrates different models of art, including sculpture, photography, text, oil painting, sewing and embroidery. With the concept of House/Home and her memories as inspiration, Cruz emphasizes the tension and drama between present/past and reality/imagination through various images. The dull, ordinary traces of life are given new meanings through the interactions of symbols carried in the work.
After repeatedly pointing out the understanding of memories during different periods, Cruz takes a creative journey during which she undergoes many mental debates. Throughout the journey she carefully observes events in life, recalls times that have past, meditates on her family memories, and seeks out the meaning of life. As time pass, we usually evoke memories to relive the past. We also use the House/Home as the starting point of our regression to inspire our views on the future world. Through Cruz’s work, we are moved by the notion of “a split second is eternity”. In the web of intangible emotions, maybe we can only truly exist in memories we had imagined…
