Autoetnographic journey Tereza Stehlikova workshop in Danielle Arnauld Gallery Garden addition about my grandmother and memories. I went to this amazing workshop where I talked about memories and connection and objects that connects us to that connect us to memories and ancestors. I was talking about my first earliest memory as a child swinging in a hammock in the forest that my great grandmother owned a little piece of a forest with a housing it and we used to go there every summer with my mom and my great grandmother and grandmother used to have bees there and have lots of art made of natural elements such as the mushrooms that grow on trees and using things such as eggshells to create paintings and then create colours and creek these eggshell mosaics and embroidered tapestries and I just remember the piece of the Kom of swinging in the hammock and seeing the trees above my head in the wind gently floating with the sky behind them
Another memory connected to my grandmother‘s watch, which I wear quite often as a bracelet because it doesn’t work anymore. It’s a small Russian golden watch they don’t make them anymore. My mom and I were going to grandma‘s things and I decided to keep this one my mom seems to enjoy going to the cemetery a lot of cleaning the grave putting new flowers on it making it look pretty and that I think makes her feel connected to my grandmother. I mean Internista her that’s what my grandmother did when she went to her mother‘s grave so my great grandmother‘s grave the act of cleaning it taking care of it made her feel closer to those that are dead to me it doesn’t work. I don’t feel that at all but when I wear the watch I feel I feel like she’s with me, I feel part of her is always with me so that’s how I feel connected to her. I guess also every time I need or crochet or do anything with my hands that’s crafty it kind of makes me feel a little bit like her hands are guiding my hands and this way some sort of thread of creative creativity is passed on from her for me.
The final thing we did is choose a place in the garden that best worked for our feeling of connection with our past with the memories with time and I chose a tree which I decided to hug because that’s what my great grandmother and grandmother did when we used to walk around in the forest when I was little and they used to walk up to trees and hug them. I don’t know why I just feel like I want to walk up to trees and hug them and through this action feel connected to my female ancestors by doing the same thing they used to do. Additionally I heard somewhere that it is grounding because we used to walk barefoot and now we wear shoes with rubber soles and we actually stop being grounded and using all the electronic devices screens makes us even less grounded. Therefore it’s good to practice a few ways of grounding, by either walking barefoot on the grass or hugging trees. The trees, they keep growing, they are alive but they also carry history. They’re so Old and so alive at the same time so hugging a tree feels both grounding and finding connection with female ancestors and just generally feeling peaceful and whole. And full of gratefulness and gratitude for how amazing nature is, it’s so easy to forget yet so neccessary to survive.
Add also cigarettes – my grandmother – chainsmoking, loneliness, cigarettes as friends
