‘I’ll Carry It With Me’ shows the process and journey of making memories and remembering through the act of craft. The film shows two parts – making the ‘memory book’ and wrapping it up (making memories and storing them in our brains) and then carrying them around with me everywhere I went before finally unwrapping and reading through the book (remembering and enjoying our memories). This film ended up being a multi-dimensional performance piece as it was not a film only about the act of remembering but outside of the film, I had to remember to take the book with me wherever I went and to film snippets every day. The book, the finished film and the entire filming process became a set of physical memories, which was a key theme from my initial project idea.
Filmed using Samsung S20 Ultra smartphone and tripod. Compiled and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Over the course of 3 months, this book was constructed from sheets of parchment paper, hand-stamped, wrapped in reused brown packing paper and carried with me everywhere I went, every day. Craft has a wonderful ability to envelope a process of making something with care and attention. It enables us to consider artefacts of the world with precision and purpose. We learn lessons through craft because there tend to be more rules. You have lenience when painting a picture; if a small speck of paint goes awry, it’s artistic haphazardness and its part of the painting. Craft quite often has to be meticulous and slow and I think this is overlooked. You have to hand over some part of your energy to the making process, and that can take a lot out of you, but it’s okay because what you are making is beautiful.