An online exhibition from SAC Arts
Meka Tome
In an image-driven world, the impact of photographs on our memory is rarely considered.
Meka Tome is a fine artist using experimental photographic techniques to communicate cognitive processes, encouraging analysis of our own perceptions. Inspired by the ever-changing nature of organic life, their work often features ephemeral materials that reflect the fleeting nature of human experience. These organic forms, often juxtaposed with minimalist industrial structures, speak to the isolation that results from humanity’s self-inflicted estrangement from other forms of life. Through the use of non-archival photographs, Tome’s work addresses the human desire to preserve ourselves in a system destined for decay.
Encode, Store, Retrieve, 2021
Durational Sculpture
Chlorophyll Printed Leaf, Water, Steel
54”
A photograph has the inherent ability to freeze and preserve a fleeting moment, acting as a vessel for memory.
A memory consists of three acts: recording (experiencing), neural alteration (storing), and recollection (remembering).
Embedded within this leaf is an organically printed memory that represents and resembles the process of human memories. Sandwiched between a wood panel and glass beneath the sun, the leaf is subjected to an extraordinary amount of energy, and an image is imprinted within it. This change occurs on a cellular level; similar to how our memories are experienced then stored.
The leaf is unattainable until it is slowly exposed through the melting ice, and reanimated by the water. Only then is it finally tangible. Even water, a substance that sustains life, affects the integrity of the leaf and the contrast in the print. Memory has a similar delicacy to it: our fluid memories are not always as accurate as we trust them to be.
They may never emerge the same as before.
Is This Living?, 2020
Durational Sculpture
Silver Gelatin Emulsion, Apple, Mold
4 1/2” x 4 3/4”
Is This Living? (2020) is a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It consists of an apple with an eye printed on it through the silver gelatin process.
When did the apple stop living–when it stopped growing? When it was picked from the tree? The moment it was cut in half only to be smothered in silver iodide? What about days later when it still felt crisp enough to consume, then continued to change?
Each day the eye aged as the surface of the apple wrinkled, which finally became engulfed by new growth preventing the eye from seeing or being seen.
If we are not growing, are we still living?
Veiled Memories, 2022
Participatory Installation
Photographic Emulsion, Water, Glass Vials, Light Table, Stools
25” x 64” x 74”
Thinking about reconsolidation of memory and retrieval-induced distortion, Veiled Memories (2022) is an exploration of the preservation and fragility of memories as they live as their own entities. Like memories, the images in the vials are constantly subject to change and reinterpretation depending on numerous variables including mood, past experiences, fragments that are revealed, and their environment. Visitors are encouraged to hold and manipulate the vials occupying the light table designed for a child’s height. The preserved images’ lives will come to an end just as ours do and our memories fade: the photographic emulsion will disintegrate over the course of six months, rendering each vial’s contents a past memory.
