Memory, Art, and Identity

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Memory, Art, and Identity

• How do we shape our identity through art-making
  and memory?
• Jessie Van der Laan
• Art and Organism
• Spring 2007

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Identity

• Maslows Needs
• Physiology
• Safety
• Belonging
• Esteem
• Self-Actualization

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Identity

• Maslows Needs
• Physiology
• Safety
• Belonging
• Esteem
• Self-Actualization

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Identity

• Maslows Needs
• Physiology
• Safety
• Belonging
• Esteem
• Self-Actualization

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MemoriesHow do we hold on to them?
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• All my work in the past fifty years, all my
  subjects, have found their inspiration in my
  childhood. My childhood has never lost its
  magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has
  never lost its drama.
• -Louise Bourgeois

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• Memory and creativity intersect in the brain in
  the Prefrontal Cortex

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Left and Right Prefrontal Cortex

• Left Right
• Organizes and Categorizes Responsive to new
• Information information
• Applies information to known processes specific
  
• Categories information
• Conventional metaphor Novel metaphor
• Essentially art is a trick that allows us to
  indirectly convey the structure of our minds.
• --Russell Epstein
• Center for cognitive
• Neuroscience, University
• of Pennsylvania

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metaphor

• Meaning is created once something can be
  related to personal experience.
• -Felix Gonzalez-torres

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I am my work.- Louise Bourgeois