‘Mystic Writing-Pad, 1908-2008’ is about the relationship between humans, objects, photographs and
memories.
 
Photographs, like objects, are the evidence of the past and the embodiment of memories. We remember the
past by them. However, pictures can lie, and so can our minds. We will never know whether memory is real or
not. It is like history, something we desire but which can never be reached. Like secondary revision in ‘The
Dream Works’, we revise our memories, transforming them into something better or worse. As in the saying,
“The good old days are gone”, we cherish those enhanced memories in nostalgia while the authenticity of
them is still obscured.
 

The title for this work came from Sigmund Freud’s article ‘A note upon the mystic writing-pad’, (1925). In the
article, Freud used a children’s toy called a mystic writing-pad, which he compared to the way in which
memory works.
 
In the project, the artist fou­­nd and selected second-hand objects from flea markets and charity shops, and
photographed each of them with a vintage camera. The process is about treasure hunting and imagines the
story of an object that was once owned by someone unknown. Each object tells the story of a fictional
character written in parallel with a real historical event.
 
 The fictional story represents a type of private memory which exists in everyone’s life, while the real historical
event represents a public memory in the same period. Each image is 4” x 4” and the photographs are
arranged chronologically, from 1908 – 2008, and range from black and white to color. The antiquated texture
and the blurring of the image represent the ambiguity of dimly recalled memories; the commentary of each
image oscillates between real and fiction, and private and public. The work, which was begun in 2009, covers
the hundred years up to 2008. The images and text are represented in an archival form, signifying something
worth treasuring, and transforming private memories into public memories. Nevertheless, the authenticity of
the images remains obscure and unknown.
 

'Mystic-Writing Pad, 1908-2008' is participated in the exhibitiones below,

Past in Present, Art Works Gallery, Newcastle
The Archival Organism, University of Arts London, London