In Search for Recollection
or
about "Stitching" by Marko Ubovic
Memory is a mental journey through time and a type of release for past events. Considering the impact of memory on our perception of events in the present, we can ask several important questions: How does the past influence the shaping of our present? How do we build our own biography from parts of experience that is changing over time? And how true, indeed, are stories that we tell about ourselves and our lives? Daniel Schacter believes that many of us see our memories as a series of familiar photographs stored in the album of our own minds. It is clear, however, that we do not store these images free from judgement of prior experiences but we rely on the meanings, feelings or excitements that those experiences brought us. Although errors or distortions are relatively rare in this process, it can nevertheless significantly impact the way in which we remember the past, and simultaneously reveal the key characteristics of our memory system.

Since memory is a subjective experience, it is volatile and variable. It is never complete, because it is not a copy of the event but a record of it. That is the reason we cannot clearly separate the events of the present from those of the past. We, therefore, remember only what we have memorised, and what we memorise depends on who we are - our previous experience, knowledge and needs. In this way, memory helps to establish and understand our identity, while recollecting past events represents natural and inevitable way in which we think about and analyse the world around us.

Marko Ubovic addresses the volatility of his own memory, the impact of the past on accepting and understanding the present, and the possibility of establishing an identity based on memory and recollection. His decision to examine the space within himself first in the course of exploring the space outside, I consider important - because without dealing with the most intimate and sensitive personal issues one cannot appreciate and understand other people, or the environment; as well as bold - because exploring personal issues is frighteningly complicated process, with uncertain outcome. In this respect, courage is crucial here because Marko Ubovic asks himself, as well as others, a series of personal and often uncomfortable questions. It also seems that in this process he is more often than not on his own, which adds further significance to this exploration - what is important and of essence, and from which everything else comes that observers have no idea about, is created in just this particular kind of solitude.

Marko Ubovic recognises, applies and connects all available means and elements of expression - from photos, audio and video records and artifacts, through different spaces (physical and psychological, virtual and real), all the way to stories and events. The time is here featured as one of the key participants - not only in establishing the links between the past and the present, but also as an element contained in different objects, spaces and sounds he uses in his work. For that reason, on the level of interpretation, i.e. perception and reception of his work, legibility is variable. For the author, the text is, of course, entirely clear. For the audience, the content is of different level of legibility and communicability, so the consequences of such method are also inevitably different. And it is this diversity that is key to establishing a dialogue between the author and the audience, especially due to the fact that the audience in this case is not homogenous category. A special place here, of course, belongs to a few people very close to the author himself, then to those who know him personally. For other people, the audience that do not know Marko Ubovic, "Stitching" could represent a laboratory for restructuring their own thoughts, but also a space for an active internal dialogue.

Tatjana Dadic Dinulovic

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