Megan had just ordinary crisps... Don't tell me about art!

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I have been playing around with how place and memory are constructed via single sensory stimuli. I found by chance, a cassette of an interview I did with my daughter when she was 5 about ‘memory’.

Apparently memories ‘are a thing that you remember from long ago…you keep your memories in your head …in your brains… they stay in your brains because you always think about them and you must’….

She is now 18 so it is funny how some of her attitudes remain the same…. including her pleads for me not to talk to her about art.

The striking thing is how she constructs the memories. She remembers specific details like going to the pub and having salt and vinegar flavour crisps and apple juice whilst my cousin (who was 6 at the time) has ordinary crisps and apple juice as well… and yet she misses out broader details like where she actually was. She emphasises some words and experiences which must have been fresh to her. Like the word ‘nervous’ and an incident where a mad old woman tried to mug me when we were waiting at a pelican crossing.

The process of handling cassettes and a walkman is very evocative… especially the fast forward and rewind sounds…