Scanning involves the act of scanning letters exchanged between Sanford’s parents. It unfolds in a measured and unhurried fashion, such that the repetition of placing, flipping and scanning of the sheets of thin, onion-skin papered letters bears a ceremonious, significantly cathartic quality. Here, it is as though the mundanity of photocopying the undecipherable scrawls carries the act of re-acknowledging, re-recording and archiving; it is an almost forensic activity that enacts a means of remembering – or not losing – the data and ‘memories’ exchanged between and carried by Sanford’s parents. In expanding her ‘letters’ series, Sanford is adopting personal artefacts of war and loss and using them to mediate her encounters with memory and the consciousness or unconsciousness of what is revealed and/or concealed.
Amy Lee Sanford (b. 1974, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) studied art, science and engineering at Brown University and furthered her art studies by enrolling at individual courses at The Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University. She has exhibited in the Museum of fine Arts (Boston, USA), Yavuz Gallery (Singapore), Stanford University (Stanford, USA).
