The A moment in time exhibition at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery combined a selection of recent and new works that all explored ideas of memory. Below is a wonderful essay by Diana Robson written especially for the exhibition.
A tale began in other days
A tale began in other days,
When summer suns were glowing –
A simple chime, that served to time
The rhythm of our rowing –
Whose echoes live in memory yet,
Though environs years would say ‘forget.’ *
It would be too simple and in fact misleading to say that the work of Niomi Sands takes us ‘for a trip down memory lane’, though this may well be where the journey begins, it is unlikely, this is where it will end.
Like Alice, as she steps through the looking glass into a ‘seemingly’ familiar room, with everything in its rightful place, though in reverse, of course, Sands objects are immediately recognisable – bobbins, cotton reels, a locket, a tea cup and saucer. The familiarity is comforting and the memories do come to the surface.
But things are never quite as they may appear to be, as Alice soon discovered, on the other side of the looking glass. Or rather, not as they should be, perhaps not as you remembered them. The locket, the bobbin and the reel of cotton, just as you remembered them, but now ‘larger than life’. A stool, a piece of clothing, a set of keys, frozen at a particular moment in time. But which moment? Void of distinguishing colour or markings, it makes the remembering just a little more difficult.
Is the memory real or is it just our imagination? What role does memory play in our lives, how does it shape and form who we are and who we may become? These are some of the many questions at play in Niomi Sands exquisite and beguiling objects.
Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,
With bitter tidings laden,
Shall summon to unwelcome bed
A melancholy maiden!
We are but older children, dear,
Who fret to find our bedtime near. *
Diana Robson, February 2011
* excerpts from, Child of the Pure Unclouded Brow, introductory poem, Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
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