Curatorial Projects > (re)collection (2012)

Kelli Yon
mnemonic study #1 (detail), 2012
Gum bichromate photographic prints on Mulberry paper

This series of photographs investigate a personal idea of collective memory.

My memories transpose onto the images from Japan, reminding me of the past’s that across cultures we inherently share. One particular image rescued from Japan was certainly taken in my grandmother’s living room and that’s my mother standing there in her baby blue robe…

I am also reminded in looking at these images that the lines drawn on maps do not separate the world. Ours waters and lands join and intersect, each transposing and overlapping, affecting and changing each other constantly, parts of the same.

We cherish memories that live in paper, finding stories and creating identities. In these fractured, ghostly images I ask how much weight does an image hold? How much truth can it dictate, and how much does a photograph shape our past?” – Kelli Yon

(re)collection – A collaboration with Lost and Found: Family Photos Swept by the 3.11 East Japan Tsunami

September 12 – October 27, 2012
Intersection for the Arts
San Francisco, CA

Photo credit: Scott Chernis