Pool

. Pool sets out to pair memory to place, drawing on the age old mnemonic device of the “Memory Theater.” A central image is of the Portland dancer and choreographer, Linda K. Johnson, submerged underwater, looking directly back at the viewer as she contracts, glides, tumbles, and hovers in a watery amnion of blue. Interspersed are images of a full moon; a book that has caught fire; salmon swimming upstream; a burning house; botanical frescoes from the House of Livia in Rome; and the words "Ars Memoriae." All of these have intensely personal meaning for me: My own home burned down when I was a child. Memories are often punctuated or exacerbated by trauma. The book is Ovid's Metamorphoses and "Ars Memoriae" refers to the ancient mnemonic practice of visualizing as an aid to remembering complex sequences—both have been influential throughout my career. As these images combine and change viewers experience a kind of narrative with open ended and shifting meaning. Pool investigates ideas that have driven Western culture for millennia using 21st century technologies.