"On Longing" Assignment

The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale.

The human body is the force breaking the beauty in the picture. The body is used to show the scale of the captured beings and the elements in the room.

The souvenir exists as a sample of the non distanced experience, an experience which the object can only evoke and resonate.

To any regular person, these bottles merely represent sodas. But to me, they are the memory of Birmingham, Alabama, the only place I can manage to find them. I get them overtime I visit.

The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the three-dimensional into the miniature, that which can be enveloped by the body.

Polaroid cameras are special to me as they can preserve the memory on sight. They can take real life and make it a miniature preservable moment at any time. This picture also contradicts that, as it is a photo of a polaroid picture, which then defeats the purpose but obtains the two-dimensional memory.

Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss.

This picture holds nostalgia as it is a memory from an elated point in my life, although now four of the people in the photo have removed themselves from my life for various individual reasons. The fuzzy states of the photo both represents the camera quality at the time (caring more about the photo itself rather than the quality) and the fact that it has begun to fade from my memory.

To have a souvenir of the exotic is to possess both a specimen and a trophy

This strawberry milk may seem simple, but at some points was my only source of happiness last semester. When I was alone and blue, I would go to the student center and purchase a jug to lift my spirits. It not only represents the exotic headspace that I used to occupy, but also a trophy of overcoming my sadness solely through myself.