New Borrowed Memories collection
The name of this collection comes from a short story by Tove Jansson, The Woman Who Borrowed Memories. It tells of an artist who returns to her studio after years away and finds that the acquaintance who took it over has adopted her own memories. The artist becomes increasingly uncomfortable as the woman, who was on the periphery of her group of friends, takes her place in her recollection of events.
We’ve probably all had that disconcerting feeling to some degree on finding that someone else remembers an event differently to us. But memory is a slippery, layered thing, forever redrawn as we recall and retell each event, and as we too change along the way.
It’s an unsettling idea – that we don’t really remember anything accurately – but there is wonderful humanity and creativity to it too. Living is about writing our own story, and what we include, how we shape the tale and describe its plot twists, is down to us. And if our memories are partly fictional, why not adopt a little imaginary past along the way?
Whether it’s feeling nostalgia for a (probably mythologised) period before our own time – what John Koenig calls ‘anemoia’ in his wonderful Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows – or idealising our own childhood, or perhaps adopting some old favourite daydreams as part of our story: it is all ours to edit and to tell.
From this idea I have created six new products.
Anemoia notebooks invite you to indulge in that feeling of imagined nostalgia. The covers are made of my own handmade, recycled paper, its pale grey a remnant of the ink from the original printed sheets, and letterpress printed.
Time travel journals can be used as journals, photo albums or scrapbooks, their design, with touches of gold, evoking a little magic, whether you are using them to travel through your own life or your imagination.
Escape maps are folded and bound A3 sheets, blank for you to start plotting your own escape – through travel plans, memories of a favourite place, or perhaps a mood board or plan for the year ahead.
Lost & found albums are inspired by vintage photo albums, and the idea of collecting found photos and ephemera to create your own story from borrowed memories, although the title can just as easily refer to your own recollections and adventures.
Miniature books, like all miniatures, seem to carry their own sense of a magical, imaginary world, born of childhood play and fairy tales. For this collection I chose printed covers with an evocative sense of a fantasy past.
Borrowed memories in a bottle are a twist on my custom messages in a bottle: beautiful descriptive passages from some of my favourite novels, chosen for their potential as borrowed memories to dream and make your own.
The collection is available now.
