Erika Dueck Sculptures

In Erika Dueck’s optical machines, the viewer can peer through a small opening into a near-pathological state of anxious disorder; a state of things half-accomplished and naggingly r...

The mind is both organized and disorderly, linking thoughts and experiences unconnected within reality. It is unstable; memories are misplaced, sometimes forgotten, trapped in storage next to the illuminated, while others are never processed. This temporal structure is built up and destroyed within a lifetime, unique and never wholly accessible. My inspiration came from my own childhood understandings of how memories functioned. I imagined that the mind resembled a large filing room that required recurrent visits in order to maintain information’s availability. If memories were placed in a room and not accessed often enough, an individual could potentially forget the existence of an entire room and its memories. In order to prevent this loss, I regularly practiced “memory cleaning” days throughout my life, systematically revisiting important “files” and allowing me to retain some memories from as young as two years old. This piece is meant to be an impetus for viewers to further meditate and consider their minds and memories in relation to their understandings, their motivations, their fears, and their habits and question what they have remembered and forgotten, neglected, tried to forget, and what has become overwhelming, obsessive, and perhaps even relevant. Erika Dueck is a visual artist from Manitoba who finished her BFA (Honours) at the University of Manitoba in 2013 and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph. Her work has received several awards, including the National Winner of the BMO 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition, and recognition as one of eleven winners in the UNESCO Chair...