Memories Against Time is a micro series that cohesively blends my poetry, installations, and drawings.

In the poem, I use the throat as a symbol of time. Whether we cough, swallow, or speak, our throat movements are controlled by our Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve. In our fish-like ancestors, this nerve's route would have traveled from the brain, past the heart, to the gills, as it does in modern fish.

However, over time, as our necks extended and the heart shifted lower in the body, the laryngeal nerve gradually lengthened in small increments to accommodate these changes. It eventually formed a loop underneath and behind the heart before returning to the throat. This circuitous route we now observe is seven times longer than it would be if it traveled a direct path from the head to the neck.

This means that before you could make a sound or movement in your throat, the electric signal circulates around your heart first. I found this fact to be evidence of time within ourselves, both biologically and poetically.

In the drawings and installations, I used bath-related accessories to represent moments of introspection during our "shower thoughts". The central piece, depicting a bathtub faucet, conveys one of my recurring shower thoughts that I often reference in my art: the time you spend revisiting your memories and the time you are presently experiencing are simultaneous.

The left piece portrays a shower hose morphing into a serpent—a symbol of memories from the poem. The right piece features a bathtub drain, with a vintage rubber stopper replaced by a watch-like image, which holds dual meanings: it's time to stop dwelling in memories, or, stop time to dwell in memories. The audience is encouraged to discover their own personal interpretations and pick their side between the two contrasting concepts presented in this micro series.