Each Memory Game is made from twenty-five or more negatives of individual objects, pieced together in circular groups. The images resemble the party game where a tray holding a group of things is unveiled for a short time, after which the players try to list as many of the articles as they can remember. In Memory Games, many of the objects reappear several times in different images. You know you have seen them before, but where? The images are dense and small. The objects are in many cases familiar, but hard to name.

The eight photographs that make up Memory Games are part of a larger body of work called Aide-Mémoire. This series investigates what it might be like to lose one’s memory and enter a place where images and objects can no longer be relied upon to conjure up ideas, events or language.

Carol Sawyer is a Vancouver-based visual artist, singer, and performer. Her father has Alzheimer’s disease. This work is dedicated to him.