A memento is a token that reminds one of past experiences or places. Each series of analytical work is paired with a memento that works within the discourse of that particular lens and aims to evoke the more ephemeral and haptic qualities of the study.
The mementos in this series harken back to the traditional way archaeology is taught in academia: slides of images paired with oral analysis. Instead, the text and descriptions have been collapsed upon one another, much in the style of Barbara Kruger’s later feminist work in the 1980’s. Barbara Kruger’s work was an appropriation of existing advertisements reedited with feminist provocative text; similarly the discipline of archaeology appropriates images and objects from various cultures and applies their own text, discourse, and even mythology around the objects they have chosen to fetishize.
