Material Memory

Private Life and Public Expression: How the blog started in 2010

Recently, I came home after four years at university – to find a cup of tea and a mountain of boxes with my name on it. Bursting at the seams, inside these boxes were all the things that had ever belonged to me, (my wardrobe having been long since occupied). There were orange exercise books ever-so neatly inscribed with the history of the Cold War,boys’ names scribbled across the covers (and hastily scribbled out), a whole collection of floral-patterned coffee mugs (when that caffeine addiction really took over mid second-year) and a bunch of slightly-too-vibrant vintage dresses I had bought for a fiver, cut too short and only worn that one time. Not to mention the notes, blazers, badges, socks, account books started and unfinished, braces, postcards etc. These were material possessions which spanned sixth form to university and back home again.

When it came to deciding whether or not to keep these things, often the decision did not rest on whether or not I would ever use them again; instead, it was rather who I had danced with while wearing that dress, or who had knitted that jumper for me, or where I had my first mocha from that mug which compelled me to stash them away for a rainy day when I could get them out only to appreciate these same memories once more. With this in mind, I discovered that these ‘materials of memory’ hold a peculiar position between private, emotional attachment and the public experience and location that attachment first stemmed from – the person, place, time, situation etc.

With this blog, I hope to explore how novelists, directors and playwrights (amongst others, like songwriters and poets) thrust these private feelings back out into the public eye, by reconstructing ‘material memories’ in a wholly public space – for the audience to view them, the reader to read them, and the listener to listen to them. The residence of these memories in the public medium is shaped by the same dilemma as my unpacking – one torn between influence from public experiences and the private meaning developed from these. Public mediums such as film and literature add another level to the dilemma: public expression.

And for now…

Those were the beginning-thoughts anyway. I had originally planned to look at British, German and American film and literature but, a year on and since beginning my PhD, I have confined my research to British film (and bits of magazines and novels). This means that most of the posts will be based on British design, concepts of home, spectatorship and memory in these public spaces. However, I will look out for possible German and American links as I go.