Memory and autobiographical resemantisation

One of the fundamental pillars of an aging society is the necessity to reinvigorate the concept of elderlyness: one way, among many, is to work with photography, memory and storytelling (written and narrated). But there are many types of memory, we have identified at least three: icastic memory, verisimilitude memory, and fantastic memory.

The work with the image aims to stimulate the auto-biographical narrative by drawing on different types of memory and thus soliciting individual and collective memories, thanks to the use of techniques linked to storytelling, art and technologies of generative AI with an embodied cognition and ethno-semiotic-design methodology. This experimental approach was implemented together with other group activities during the workshop held in Trento at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler.

Two activities concerning memory were carried out in this context: ‘Creative and collective writing’ and ‘Images and stories between self-perception, identity and anonymity’, aimed at answering the following questions: How do the over-65 generations interact with memory and their past? What synergies and discursive practices are established with objects and actions (dressing, food, territory, spaces, images, everyday life) and with subjects (living beings, family members, care-givers, community, peers, strangers or other non-human living beings, animals, plants, universe, etc.)? What relationship with analogue/digital making in their present? How to foster creativity and interaction? How can such a precious stage of life be attested to?