Belongings

Anecdotes from my mother’s childhood have been blurred and jumbled by my grandparents’ Alzheimer’s. The engravings overlaying the paintings symbolizes the two generations following my grandparents, and our subsequent experiences with narrative and memory distortions. The unicorn is a symbol from my trauma nightmares as a child, the nightmares were so frequent they became memories. The other engraving is a photograph my mother took while she was pregnant with me. My parents claim it was a happy, mundane day, yet my father’s countenance is charged with vigilance. We left the country shortly after I was born.

These engravings of generational trauma overlaying Alzheimer’s pose a question of what will be passed on - painful memories or involuntary memory loss?