TY - JOUR
T1 - Moving hearts: How mnemonic labour (trans)forms mnemonic capital
AU - Reading, Anna
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The project was made possible by a seed grant from the Plus Alliance social justice fund provided by King’s College, London, Arizona State University, US and the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Funding Information:
Many thanks to research assistants Dr Alexandra Kubica and Vinya Mehta and the wider research team that included Plus Alliance Research Fellow Dr James Bjork and Penny Ryan and supporters Johnathan Shaw and Aphra Harvey-Reading. In addition, heart-felt thanks to all the unnamed heart-makers, heart carriers and installation visitors as well as Claytime Collective, St Dunstan?s College, London South Bank University, Telegraph Hill Community Centre and Mora Muslim Women?s Group. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The project was made possible by a seed grant from the Plus Alliance social justice fund provided by King?s College, London, Arizona State University, US and the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/2/16
Y1 - 2021/2/16
N2 - This study explores how memory forms may be understood through an economic lens tracing how the labour of remembering adds value to and (trans)forms memories. The study focuses on embodied memories and imaginaries of migration and belonging and the ways in which these are (trans)formed through mobile and social media witnessing into a collective living archive and into objectified memory forms that include art works and digital artefacts situated within global mnemonic commodity chains. Empirically, the article draws on an arts-based collaborative research project, ‘Moving Hearts’ carried out with the UK Migration Museum in 2016–2018 that examined embodied, artistic, and institutional memories and imaginaries of migration. Theoretically, the article builds on the growing body of research in memory studies on the economies of memory, bringing together a political economy approach to memory and work within participatory arts to provide insights into how memory forms may be understood through mnemonic labour and mnemonic capital. Specifically, it shows how the mnemonic labour of participants making, carrying and walking with clay hearts transforms memories of migration and belonging into new kinds of mnemonic capital.
AB - This study explores how memory forms may be understood through an economic lens tracing how the labour of remembering adds value to and (trans)forms memories. The study focuses on embodied memories and imaginaries of migration and belonging and the ways in which these are (trans)formed through mobile and social media witnessing into a collective living archive and into objectified memory forms that include art works and digital artefacts situated within global mnemonic commodity chains. Empirically, the article draws on an arts-based collaborative research project, ‘Moving Hearts’ carried out with the UK Migration Museum in 2016–2018 that examined embodied, artistic, and institutional memories and imaginaries of migration. Theoretically, the article builds on the growing body of research in memory studies on the economies of memory, bringing together a political economy approach to memory and work within participatory arts to provide insights into how memory forms may be understood through mnemonic labour and mnemonic capital. Specifically, it shows how the mnemonic labour of participants making, carrying and walking with clay hearts transforms memories of migration and belonging into new kinds of mnemonic capital.
KW - Migration, belonging,
KW - memory forms, memory labour, migration, museums, participatory arts
UR - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVHFnnbFW1g
UR - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43527183
UR - https://www.claytime.london/copy-of-the-well-walk-pottery
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698020976465
DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698020976465
M3 - Article
SN - 1750-6980
VL - 14
SP - 95
EP - 111
JO - Memory Studies
JF - Memory Studies
IS - 1
M1 - Volume 14, Issue 1
T2 - Migration Museum Moving Hearts Workshops
Y2 - 1 March 2018 through 31 March 2018
ER -