What is Shaping Memory and how did it come to be?
Working with objects, artificial intelligence (AI)-generated digital artwork, and photography, my project Shaping Memory explores the relationship between modern and contemporary medical visual culture. The subject of these works include nutritional science, familial and existential circumstances, and neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
I use the concept of the body and mind as an integrated system of biological processes, molecular signaling, genetic coding, environmental and lifestyle factors, and individual and the social imagination to combine artistic experimentation and self-reflexive inner dialogue to create meaning.
Iterations on the iconic food pyramid composition mimic its stylistic devices, such as the stability of the triangle, the compartmentalization of nourishment, and the simplification of sources of macro and micro nutrients. Replacing the familiar contents with conceptual contents, such as mazes and incendiary dried pine needles, symbolizes various ideas, including transience, caregiving, confusion, consequences, and metaphors, for the chemical and electrical bodily systems of energy production.
Shaping Memory includes and refers to a spectrum of artistic techniques including traditional women’s domestic work. The motif of crocheted doilies and patterns evokes traditions of homemaking, while visually recalling biological diagrams of cells, neurons, synapses, and the repeating patterns of microscopic and molecular structures, whose shapes and operations are key to physical and mental wellness, and their unraveling.
Who initially inspired you to grapple with dementia?
This body of work responds to my role as primary caregiver to my father as he experiences memory and lifestyle challenges due to Alzheimer’s disease. The intensity of my work with my father has inspired my research into dementia needs and expectations. My family has a history of Alzheimer’s, starting with my grandmother.
How has working on dementia-related art changed you?
Working on dementia-related art has brought an even greater focus on memory, family, and scientific study into my work, which has often explored aspects of knowledge, self-reflection, the environment, and symbolic states. As in my previous work, there is a collapse of the real and the existential, to suggest the strength and determination of knowledge and learning, the emotional labor of memories, and the generative role of trust and secrets. Often the objects infer or confound the domestic; expectations, investments, and competencies are played out in an arena of duties, dreams, desires and rituals.
How has Shaping Memory been received?
While the inspiration for my work has personal sources, the works can be interpreted by the viewer more broadly. My intention is to inspire the viewer to consider neurodegenerative disease in new ways, through a blend of beauty, emotion, storytelling, and materiality.
This work is dedicated to: I am drawing inspiration from the lives and experiences of my paternal grandmother and my father.
Find more from Marcella Hackbardt on her website. The work can also be seen in several upcoming showings, at The Phipps Center for Arts, Hudson, WI, September 12 to November 2, and at the Intersect Arts Center, St Louis, MO, September 15 to March 21.
