In The Contemporary Art Modern Project’s showing of “Fragmentos Rescatados”, Lucia Warck Meister deals with the concept of memory, be it its relationship with nationhood, its deprecation in the face of historical revisionism, and its frailty in part due to the ravages of change and time.
Amongst the abstract thoughts privy only to mankind, collective memory is unique in its ability to creep into identity. Countless examples exist: the liturgical stories we use to guide our lives in global religions, the filtered recounting of nationhood fed to the global youth in elementary schools, the story of how your mom and dad fell in love and fatefully conceived their children. These memories inform who we are and what we believe about the world around us; because of their centrality in our paradigm of thought, one would imagine that these memories were durable, steadfast, tangible items, that they are realities of one’s life. Such a status would make life more simplistic and direct.