Broken Assemblages: the connections between memory, hope and brokenness

Abstract

This thesis examines the connections between memory, brokenness and hope by investigating philosophical thought models, critically analysing artworks and exploring personal perspectives. It questions whether material aesthetics, spatial sensitivities and sculptural sympathies can offer insights into repairing and restoring unhopeful thought patterns after personal brokenness. The accompanying artworks, Now and Still, are perpetual artefacts verifying hopeful healing while remaining places of enduring hope. My research examines rhizomatic thought as described by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, alongside the theories of Rosalind Krauss concerning shared material characteristics to investigate possible applications to human memory. I explored brokenness and hope through researching the historical repair techniques of Kintsugi and Sashiko before drawing on examples of repair in the natural and spiritual world. Sarah Sze’s Triple Point, Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs and Yayoi Kusama’s Armchair (Accumulation) are visual supports that illustrate how humans can activate memory towards hope by activating human agency. The paper includes discussions concerning the tendency in scientific research to see the brain as an isolated organ, detached from the human being’s ontology, and potential avenues of repair, namely hopeful renewal. Further, the research investigates the possibility of reconfiguring memories into alternate hopeful thought assemblages by sculpting memories, treating them as an artist would a medium. The emphasis of the research was on reassembling broken memory assemblages that needed hopeful repair. It includes an analysis of pieces by contemporary artists Junki Oki and Charlotte Bailey and references contemporary environmental works by Rachel Sussman and Janet Laurence. The accompanying artworks, Now and Still show distinct yet integrated assemblages that capture the adaptive and recursive nature of memory, hope, and brokenness.