the first memory with you

Could a memory still exist if there is no one capable of remembering it? “the first memory with you” is made with a mysterious set of Polaroids took by Hsieh's mother in Dallas Texas, 1987, the year before Hsieh's birth. The story regarding these photos has been long forgotten. The film examines different phases of remembering. The Polaroids collide with hand shadow puppetry and the optical path of the Polaroid SX-70 camera to explore the memory from various perspectives: the womb, the viewfinder, a mother’s touch, the soundscape inside and outside of frames and the flow of time. Hands serve as an instrument to capture stories and physically connect individuals to a time and place. The two hands in the film, the mother’s and the daughter’s, bridge the past and the present, conjuring the physical and inherent memory.

Year

2022

Director

Hsuan-Kuang Hsieh

Duration

4 min

Country

Taiwan

Language

Mandarin Chinese