Julia van Eijden

My work is centered around the theme of remembering. Specifically focusing on the aspect of letting go, but not being able to, and clinging to a memory and the inevitability of the changing memory. For this I draw inspiration from souvenirs. Usually considered trivial, kitsch or trash, souvenirs inherently contain a very poetic element: reminiscing. They also presume to have the ability to capture an entire place or event in one single object. The scenes are supposedly captured in bright and clear settings, but they can never live up to the actual experience. Do they even alter our remembering?Founded by the urge to not forget, to have proof of your endeavors, but simultaneously never truly capturing it, the souvenir becomes an in-between object, somewhat bittersweet and melancholic in its essence.

By using this intrinsic value of the souvenir (from French meaning 'to remember' or 'remembrance'), I try to keepsake specific events, places or objects in my work. Other than that, my work is also an ode, as Ursula K. Le Guin writes, to 'the greatest invention of our ancestors'1: the container, the vessel.