The image above is the Korean artist Do Ho Suh’s haptic memory of the bathroom of the apartment he lived in for 18 years (but no longer lives in) on West 22nd Street, New York, NY. Suh covered every surface and every object in that apartment with white paper; rubbed the paper repeatedly with coloured pencils; peeled off the papers; removed them; and then pinned them to boards, organising their placement by type. ‘Rubbing is like writing a diary’, Suh says. 1-to-1 scale representations of bathroom fixtures, smoke alarms, floor tiles. Not the original objects, but the shape of the original objects, displayed on the wall like a giant butterfly, or a taxonomy of the material culture of one particular domestic space. The objects are very nearly present, but their pencil-rubbing medium – a medium that recalls (for me, at least) a child bent over a brass memorial to someone in the historic past – declares that these objects are resolutely not here. The rubbings are attentive testimonies to a series of absences. (Do Ho Suh’s work is currently on exhibition at the
The creation of this house-inventory memorial through rubbing also charges the rubbed objects themselves with electrons (due to friction)—or, perhaps, with memories. I wonder if it is also possible to evoke a memory of a person using this technique.
I love this idea -- a mirror image, as if the process of inventorying a house creates for the objects a memory of the inventorying. Like buildings that remember that they've been photographed.
Sending digital hug. This is what I love about your writing, Adam -- you NEVER write what anyone would expect. I could say "who was that person?" but though I've known you for a long time it would be an intrusion. But you make me think more deeply about expressing what has happened in my long life!
The creation of this house-inventory memorial through rubbing also charges the rubbed objects themselves with electrons (due to friction)—or, perhaps, with memories. I wonder if it is also possible to evoke a memory of a person using this technique.
I love this idea -- a mirror image, as if the process of inventorying a house creates for the objects a memory of the inventorying. Like buildings that remember that they've been photographed.
Beautiful piece of writing!
Sending digital hug. This is what I love about your writing, Adam -- you NEVER write what anyone would expect. I could say "who was that person?" but though I've known you for a long time it would be an intrusion. But you make me think more deeply about expressing what has happened in my long life!
thank you germaine!