Fade away

The driving force behind this project was the discovery of an old viewmaster containing a card full of photos of the region where I grew up in Switzerland. Looking back at these images made me reflect on how fleeting memories can fade. Switzerland already seems so far away now, despite having lived there for 10 years. To symbolise this inescapable loss of memories, I chose to reproduce the viewmaster cards, but this time with empty frames. When these cards are placed in the viewmaster, only a blank frame reveals itself. In addition, each of the four cards contains a piece of an engraved drawing. When these layers are stacked correctly, the landscape of Switzerland unfolds. But when the jewel is worn, the discs will rotate, rendering the drawing invisible again, analogous to how memories fade. The wavy silver wire that holds the discs together also deliberately has this shape. It symbolises the fact that our memories do not form a straight line; they change, intermingle, some fade quickly, while others linger longer. The wire can also be opened, allowing the four discs to be detached individually and then inserted into the viewmaster.

After creating the pendant, numerous small rectangles remained from cutting out the openings in the discs. For me, these rectangles represent my memories, and I decided to use them for an extra meaningful step. The various colours of the rectangles inspired me to create a kind of mosaic, representing the whole of my memories. In some of these rectangles, I scratched important dates that are meaningful to me and that I don't want to forget. In the end, I chose to use this mosaic to create a box in which to keep the pendant, similar to how I myself have a box in which I cherish my memories.