Taylor Sitorius
/Art+Design
History and Identity:
Exploring the self through cultural conceptions of history
The past is a great influencer on our present. So much of identity is connected to personal history. How we grew up, where we are from, people we know, moments we’ve experienced; all of these fleeting instances leave an imprint on our lives. They grow together over time to slowly shape us into the people we are now. The following four pieces were selected from a larger collection.
My work began by looking at the overarching ways in which history can influence identity by examining different cultural conceptions of history. I was interested in how our social and cultural understandings of the past affect how we perceive our own histories and how those perceptions influence the how we exist in our worlds. The piece “Everything that is has been before” references cyclical versus linear time, questioning how ideas about fear and courage would be different in each reality. “Float easy on the Dead Sea” illustrates the negative effects of romanticizing the past.
As my work progressed, my focused shifted. I reflected on my own identity and began to create pieces structured around how I emotionally and physically navigate and interact with my realities. These later pieces are visual expressions of aspects of my selfhood that I struggle to understand and accept. “My relationship with food” represents a tendency to associate the need or desire to consume food with weakness and a lack of self-discipline and "I'm afraid I'll lose my mind one day" explores my family history of Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Everything that is has been before
In western culture we perceive time as linier. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Nothing repeats, nothing happens again. In other cultures, Mayan for example, time is cyclical. In the origin story of the Maya people, a figure sacrifices himself without fear for he knows he will revolve again back into reality and time. This piece explores how people may behave differently if we understood time cyclically, if we knew we could experience moments over again.
Float easy on the Dead Sea
This piece reflects the all too common tendency to romanticize the past, to live in memories of moments that, in reality, were not that amazing to begin with, in order to ignore the present. Often this tight grip on the past clouds the ability to focus on the reality in front of you.
Relationship with food
In this piece, I look at relationships with food, specifically, a tendency to associate the need or desire to consume food with weakness. It illustrates the tenuous give and take battle between hungers and desires.
I'm afraid I'll lose my mind one day
My final piece explores my relationship with dementia and Alzheimer’s. My biggest fear is the loss of memory, the loss of the past. History is such a huge anchor to reality, it informs identity, and, in my experience, when that is gone personhood also disappears. I am terrified of people in my life growing older and losing their memories to disappear into a space without a past and, in turn, without an identity.