A #FakeMemory You Have To See To Believe
Remember your childhood? Seriously, do you really remember, way back to when you were tiny? And if you do, what are those memories shaped by? Chances are, they're influenced not just by what you truly remember, but by old photos and family stories.
And those family photos are often a starting point for a narrative we're either told by older family members or that we construct in our minds. (We've been exploring some of these ideas in our series, Photography and Memory.)
Inspired by this concept, we asked our followers on Instagram to share their "constructed" memories with us. We called it #fakememory, and received some incredibly poignant stories.
Faren Shear, of San Diego, is about 2 years old in the family photo she submitted. She's sitting on her grandmother's lap as her mother smiles down on them.
"We don't look related, because we're not — I'm adopted," Shear says. "So I always think these pictures are funny because I'm this super blonde tall child in a family or short, dark-haired people. "
For Shear, this and every other image of her mother has huge significance.
"My mom died when I was 5, so I actually don't think I saw a picture of my mom until I was maybe 16," she says. "All that stuff just got put away, and my dad got remarried and nobody talked about it, or her, or anything.
"And so all I can do is make up a story. It's like, I have the pieces, but everything else is in my head," she explains.
Part of Shear thinks she remembers this moment in the photo, but in truth, she says she has no memories of her mother that aren't posed and still. For Shear, the images mean the difference between having her mother in her life or not remembering her at all.
The family photo Olivia Howell submitted reminds her of her own mortality. It was taken when she was about 8 months old, the morning before she went into the hospital for open-heart surgery — a life-threatening prospect.
i i