This is such a simple idea. The old brick school building in Medina is crumbling and no longer used by the district. Over the weekend they gave the keys to the building to Resource:Art project and in partnership with Hallwalls in Buffalo and Rochester Contemporary they filled each room with an artist’s installation. Friday night’s opening party for “Playground” was sold out and Saturday and Sunday was open house. It is aptly named, a playground for artists and art lovers of all ages.
Bands were playing in the auditorium as we wandered from room to room, freestyle poetry in one room, skateboarders in the next, each a delight. Medina is a canal town and one artist drew an illustration on the chalkboard of the change in elevation as the canal crosses the state. Our favorite room was Kari Achatz’s cut paper and LED light installation. It reminded me of the blacklight room we used smoke pot in.
Jozef Bajus had artfully strung 35mm slides on lines of wire, a piece dedicated to memory. He had written a quote from Luis Buñuel on the chalkboard of his room.
“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all . . . Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing.”
All I could think about was my father. He would spend a good chunk of time on his annual Christmas card, sometimes barely getting it out before the holidays and it was always meaningful, relevant to the year and often poignant. He included an illustration, a poem-like message and maybe a quote from Chesterton. His last Christmas card, which was left on his hard drive when he died, referenced my mom’s vascular dementia. There was picture of us, their children and this unfinished poem.
“What if you couldn’t remember:
Yep!………Return to an event
Where some time was spent
When surrounded by people
Some of the people you bore
But the image you recognize no more
What if you couldn’t remember:”