charting memory : framing memory exhibition

The dynamic relationship between art, science and medicine, and the community is the subject of a new exhibition - Charting Memory, Framing Memory - by two members of the University of Newcastle, Ms Miranda Lawry and Professor Philip Schofield.

The exhibition will be held in The University Gallery, Callaghan campus, from Thursday 23 August until Friday 28 September 2007. The University of Newcastle, through the University Gallery, is an advocate for the development and strengthening of hybrid visual forms developed through the combining of research and disciplines. This exhibition and the ones to follow are the stories of these creative
collaborations.

Virna Rodriguez: Art Curator


charting memory : framing memory exhibition

Our realities, identities and lives are constructed through the ways we remember events and objects we have experienced. In this
exhibition, Philip Schofield and Miranda Lawry use non traditional media forms to explore the evocation of memory and to extend our language for describing what we see.
What makes up memory? How does it infiltrate our minds and bodies? These are some of the questions that inspire the work of Philip Schofield. An installation of collaged images of DNA sequences and combinations are represented in bands of colour and texture. They wrap themselves around a wall of the gallery. Intermittently, in tiny squares, small faces appear. In this work, Schofield is interested
in the layering of memories and identities using the language of science to transform the biochemical units of DNA into hand drawn abstractions. Each image contains some aspect of another image, and in turn, is further reconfigured into new patterns and forms. Each of these represents a unique person connected by the same unit of life.
Schofield integrates art and science through his involvement in Biochemistry and in the visual and graphic arts. The series of works entitled The barcode of life break the confines of media application through the combination of the hand worked images, digital media and prints, photography, and prints generated by medical imaging equipment such as those used to analyse the chemical make-up
of DNA. Without privileged knowledge of the source and common use of the materials and images, they can all be viewed as tools of
visual representation. Schofield aims to show the processes of medical imaging are photographic processes, providing a common link
between art and science.

In the work, Nomogram for calculating memory, Schofield asks how we arrive at a memory. Do we use a chart to find where point A
and point B intersect in time and space? The image shown here is print of a blurred face of a girl overlayed by the rigid clarity of a grid
- a reworked image from a machine is intercepted by work of the human hand. It is as if the image appears to be forming in our mind’s
eye in the same way that a photograph is developed during the printing process. Schofield illustrates how nerve endings etch the
biochemical and electrical impulses in our bodies. A hybrid visual form is produced, using the language of both art and science.

As an exploration of the regenerative benefits of expressing grief, Lawry invites the viewers to put on a different pair of eyes and enter
another person’s experience through a panorama of windows from the now closed Royal Newcastle Hospital. This project was part
of a collaborative work between the University staff, in partnership with the staff and community of the Royal Newcastle Hospital, and
the Arts for Health Program at The John Hunter Hospital. The project responds to community reactions to the official closure of the
Royal Newcastle Hospital in March 2006. Lawry, in collaboration with colleague, Professor Anne Graham, engaged with the staff at
the Hospital to express their feelings at the closure. These interactions were translated into an installation of photographic work and
memorabilia. The work was conceived as site specific installation in the foyer of the John Hunter Hospital in homage to the Royal
Newcastle Hospital. In this recontextualised space Lawry’s photographs still resonate strongly with the original intention. They are
interpretations of the exact window views where staff were invited to recall their most vivid memories of their workplace. Each window,
absent of a figure, is a ghost-like reminder of the lives that were lived in the Royal, and reflects on the very foundations of the hospital’s
existence. The salt haze through which the views were photographed document the environmental factor, which was a continued source
of frustration to the community through its impact on the maintenance needs of the Hospital.
In another major project, Lawry revisits the idea of the memories held within objects and places. In working with elderly people in
the community, Lawry interprets personal histories through photographing the objects that are collected and displayed in homes and
through the activities in which her subjects participate. Again, though most of the images do not feature individuals, they are all about
the individuals who belong to these objects through their memories. The movement of disembodied hands is captured as they play with
jigsaw puzzles and letter tiles to represent the piecing together and scrambling of memories. Other images invite responses of humour
at the characters portrayed by the objects in the photographs. In one image, a chest of drawers is labelled according to the articles of
clothing contained within.
Charting memory, Framing Memory juxtaposes romantic images of nostalgia with associations of order, measure and structure. These
ideas function as tensioning devices that question attempts to place them at opposing ends of a spectrum. As shown in the works of the
Lawry and Schofield, the intricate workings of memory need not be separated by the language of art, science and community; they are
fuelled by dynamic combinations of these frameworks of knowledge.