PLUM
by Tessa Bolsover.
2 November 2017
“Language has unmistakably made plain that memory is not an instrument for exploring the past, but rather a medium. It is the medium of that which is experienced, just as the earth is the medium in which ancient cities lie buried.” - Excavation and Memory, Walter Benjamin
Plum is an investigation into the ways we locate ourselves within space in relation to intangible matter -- light waves, radio waves, sound waves -- and how these relationships are mirrored in the ways we navigate memory. Made in tandem with a book titled Plumb, the project employs fragmented text, zoomed-in images, sound, and found objects to probe the boundaries of language and memory. Full of loneliness and mnemonic significance, the work references a multitude of personal and impersonal influences including submarine echolocation, Walter Benjamin, and the 2002 film "Signs". It is the distance between objects, the silence between soundings, and the remove between meanings that defines the experience of Plum.
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Tessa Bolsover is an artist, writer, and curator based in Portland, Oregon