Big Idea Book page1-2

Big Idea: Memory

page1-2

page1

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good.” Writer Amy Tan thinks about memory in a different way, noting that “memory feeds imagination.” These two viewpoints nicely illustrate the very different and extremely personal ways in which people approach and think about memory.

Memory plays a powerful role in our lives. We admire a sharp memory and often equate it with intelligence itself, and we worry about forgetting even when remembering is painful. The need to share memories and to self-identify through them is central to human nature. So I think memory is a topic I feel so broad and deep that it is suited to tackle as a Big Idea project.

In my opinion, memory is the evidence to prove that we are living.  And it is also the most important thing in our life. We can easily imagine that if we lost our whole memory, our life would be entirely changed, and we could not be ourselves anymore. It has a close relationship with identity. So whatever we want to do, we cannot lose it, even if it makes us hurt or impede our way to be creative.

Does memory spur creativity or hinder it? Whatever answer we find, memory in the arts will reshape and expand the ways in which we think about memory and its possibilities, limitations, even its construction and destruction.

page2

Actually, I spent months doing this project. The whole thing is about holding my memories. When I was thinking about storing memory, I thought there should be a container to hold this. Then I found the test tube is a good method, because it is easy to take with and have a wooden plug to make sure the things in it won’t go away. I took the tube everywhere and anytime which is important to me, pulling out the plug and let the air in. I recorded the time, the place, the temperature, the feeling I got outside the tube with a mark pen. And inserted the plug again as finished the ceremony.

I finally put all these tubes I have collected in a room, some of them are hanging on the ceiling and some of them are lying on the table. I want them full of my room, since it is my memory room and every tube of them record a beautiful experience of my life, I think they are the evidence of my living.

I take some photos, it expresses that sometimes we can walk into our memory space. When we are gazing them, it just like we come back to the old times and have the nice moments again. Maybe we will curious about some parts of it, because it hides too deep that we can hardly remember. Maybe we will pick up one, and have a talking with ourselves in the old time.

I just want to remember all these moments, whether it is nice or not. Because it is my life, it makes me become myself.