Misinformed Informants: Maybe It Was Nothing

We were both there. Don’t you remember when I sang to you? Did you forget? That wasn’t the best gift I ever gave you. I always cleaned the toilet. You always said you wanted to. 

We forget to remember and remember to forget, choosing exactly what it was about ___________________that was significant. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was The Most Important Thing. 

This project explores the divergent versions of a single memory made possible once our experiences have been shaped, mangled and filtered by the art of human habit. The subject I have asked to be part of this experiment in memory is also my former boyfriend of four years, who is now a close friend. Through our lectures you will understand one day in our lives. One day we shared a bicycle ride; we shared food and we talked. This was just one day. You might say it was a day like any other. Why should it be different? It becomes an oddity only under scrutiny.

On this day we both had our cameras. We took pictures of each other, one talking and the other watching the sky, one sighing, watching the other, who might have looked troubled/pleased, and through these photographs we have constructed each other’s narrative.

Canada

Julia Mensink is an emerging artist who lives in Toronto and works as a high school English and art teacher. Her artwork includes sculpture, collaborative performance, sound/musical installation and other mixed media works that explore memory and its muddy parts, loss, the archaeology of language, lies and the determination of truth. She is currently interested in the space we give ourselves – in all its forms – cosmogony, pecan pie, zines, synthesizers, typewriters, your garbage and ugly art.