An Exhibition Souvenir

That day she remembers, she was invited to an exhibition on memory, is that true? This photograph was taken after the fact. This photograph proves, as documentation, a particular memory she decided to leave of that day.

Along with the exhibition visit, and the photograph, she had left words.

Your (green?) (dress?), your invisible world, your chatter — heard by that world, your (locket?), the (wind?) — on your hair — , the wooden porch — leafy by wind.

But now, looking at it, the photograph was not wholly true of her memory of that day. The photograph proved more, than her memory. It is also not quite the memory of the memory she thought she was making, but she is the only witness in this trial.

So today we visited an exhibition on memory. The artist — John Clang, spoke of overheard conversations and visual impressions and memory. He revisits the lived experience and the memories that get ‘rewired’, and ‘reduced’ as a result. Art changes the way you think. It changes the way you live.

You might not remember this, but I made a memory of you, because I relate, and so I borrow your image and you become a part of me. You will never own this memory, just as I will never own the ones I made for others.

She swipes her lit screen — the one bearing this memory— to an image taken today.

In this other photograph, they kneel on one. There were men, and there were women. They were blue and black — bruising. But their pain seemed to threaten the pain of faceless others livid beyond the lens. Pained words of these others swarm to the image.

Saint Paul police officers take a knee to offer their support to those gathering outside the Minnesota governor’s residence to protest the death of George Floyd, on Monday. The police had secured the street in front of the residence so protesters would have space. The police first asked protest organizers if they could join the group, but some said they were uncomfortable with that. So the police decided to make this separate acknowledgement.*

Who will this image become a part of? She also wonders what happened before, and after the image was made. For everyone — from the image, behind the lens, beyond the lens, behind the viewing screens. She wonders what memory of today will make it past the narrow slip of the future.

*Text taken from a caption for a photograph by David Guttenfelder that appeared on National Geographic’s Instagram feed on June 4th 2020.