A moving image compilation, using text from my journal entries from the beginning of the pandemic, around March 2020 to the end of 2021. I wanted the text to be the focus and to flow as if the viewer is reading my journal as I write it. I had written a lot in my journals at that time due to following the “Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron” and doing daily “morning pages” - which is free writing 3 pages a day.
In the interview, Lingering in the Fragment: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme Interviewed by Ksenia M.Soboleva, Abbas and Abou-Rahme’s work is described as being “more informed by writing than visual art, and text is an essential part of [the] installation”. This was important for my project as well. With for: me by: me, I started with text and matched the video clips as an accompaniment for mood and emphasis on certain feelings, such as calmness or anxiety. I used video clips from my phone and camera that I had taken in the same time period as the journals. The footage I had was from local, everyday spots I visited during the pandemic.
The videos aren’t matched up chronologically in my project, which mirrors Abbas and Abou-Rahme’s fragmented works, though I do follow a nearly complete chronological diary for the text. The videos in for: me by: me, made sense to be fragmented and were placed where they made sense contextually. For example, “I walked in the water getting my dress wet” is text over a video I had taken at an ocean spot that I was going to almost every day. My project touches on the ‘everyday’ at that time, for me, as I was working in a hospital and spent a lot of time alone near home.
The title came from a note on the side of a journal page that I had written. My art making practices usually center on self-exploration and art as therapy. This project expresses both of these sentiments. Making for: me by: me by collecting and sorting through my journal entries was therapeutic. Comparing my feelings and thoughts then to how I feel and think now was a journey into myself. My video explores the topic of personal reflections without going too deep into each entry, only using one, or a part of a sentence. I don’t let the viewer get to see the full picture, rather they see clips of my story.
Renzo Cheesman has composed a magical music piece for this project, which I am very grateful for.
Works Cited
Deren, Maya. “Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality.” Daedalus, Vol 89, no.1, The Visual Arts Today (Winter, 1960), pp. 150-167. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20026556.
Sobeleva, Ksenia M. Lingering in the Fragment: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme Interviewed by Ksenia M.Soboleva. Bomb Magazine, Aug 17, 2022, Brooklyn, New York. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/lingering-in-the-fragment-basel-abbas-and-ruanne-abou-rahme-interviewed/.
