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Lot Essay
"Memory, of course, is the essence of my work. I think if we don't know our past there is no way we can live the present properly and there is no way we can face the future. So when all these catastrophic events take place we tend to remember just the last one. So our past really piles up behind our backs and we don't really look at it and we don't confront it. It is very important to bring these past events, to bring them alive...
If I did anything right then some aspects of the lives that were lost may be present. Then maybe the viewer can connect to those aspects. I think we all have memories of pain and those memories maybe can connect with the memories of pain inscribed in these pieces. It's difficult to deal with horrible events and tragic events and then turn all that pain into beauty. That's something that I find perverse. But on the other hand I believe that if you want to dignify a human life than you have to come back to beauty because that is where we find dignity. And almost turn it into a sacred space. That is the level of beauty that should be present in the work."
Doris Salcedo on the importance of memory, SFMOMA 2004.
If I did anything right then some aspects of the lives that were lost may be present. Then maybe the viewer can connect to those aspects. I think we all have memories of pain and those memories maybe can connect with the memories of pain inscribed in these pieces. It's difficult to deal with horrible events and tragic events and then turn all that pain into beauty. That's something that I find perverse. But on the other hand I believe that if you want to dignify a human life than you have to come back to beauty because that is where we find dignity. And almost turn it into a sacred space. That is the level of beauty that should be present in the work."
Doris Salcedo on the importance of memory, SFMOMA 2004.