Memory Art Project
The Memory Art Project reimagines travel souvenirs or collectibles as objects of personal meaning rather than passive keepsakes. Participants were invited to contribute small items they had collected over the years: seashells, beads, buttons, wine corks, toffee wrappers, cooking lessons from a trip, and other overlooked mementos that had remained tucked away in drawers. These fragments were then transformed into wearable pieces, functional objects, wall art, and personal artifacts through collaborative making.
The project emerged from my own reflection on contemporary travel culture, where experiences are often documented through photographs intended for fleeting digital consumption on social media. Instead, I think there is value in slower and more intentional forms of remembering—collecting modest objects, carrying them home, and investing time in transforming them into something both useful and personal. In doing so, memory becomes something that is made, handled, and lived with, rather than simply archived on a screen.
Can making be a way of remembering?
Footsteps Across the World
Constructed from hundreds of photographs of streets, pavements, and flooring patterns gathered over five years, Footsteps Across the World transforms a personal travel archive into an abstract landscape of movement. The repeated appearance of the participant’s footwear becomes a subtle marker of presence, inviting viewers to consider travel not as a collection of destinations, but as a sequence of footsteps, observations, and lived moments.
Toffee Wrappers in a Check-mate
What is usually discarded is given a second life. Collected over many years, these toffee and chocolate wrappers carry memories of small celebrations, shared meals, travels, and everyday indulgences. Stitched together using the traditional Button Masala technique, the work transforms ephemeral packaging into a lasting keepsake—one that finds its place beside the dining table, where new memories continue to be made.
Collections from a Seashore
Collected from distant shores over years of travel, these seashells once rested quietly in drawers as reminders of places visited. Reimagined as jewellery and wearable pieces, they find a renewed purpose, carrying memories not as souvenirs tucked away, but as objects that can be worn, shared, and woven into everyday life.
Ramen Bowl from Austin
This illustration documents more than a bowl of ramen; it preserves the experience of learning it. Inspired by a cooking class during travel, the work transforms a handwritten recipe into a visual journal where ingredients, notes, and memories coexist. It suggests that some of the most enduring souvenirs are not the objects we bring home, but the skills, flavours, and stories that become part of our everyday lives.
Memories of Wine Corks
Every cork marks the end of a shared meal, a celebration, or an ordinary evening made memorable. Gathered over time and reimagined through craft, these fragments become a record not of occasions themselves, but of relationships and conversations. A collection of wine corks has been reimagined as a pinboard where the participant can pin images, to-dos, and outcomes of other quotidian experiences.
An Apron Bag
Not every souvenir fulfils the purpose it was bought for. This apron, brought home from Portugal, remained unused until it was reimagined as a functional tote bag. Through redesign, the object continues its journey, carrying both utility and memory in equal measure.
