In a Brooklyn garage sale there was a pile of photographs. A huge pile, could have easily amounted to 2000 photographs. I picked up a few and while I was paying for them I asked the guy who works there where they get them from. He told me that they buy them off people who don't think the photos are worth keeping, he find them in abandoned storage units and in estate sales.
He later went on about how they're actually very valuable because they're single copies and rarely, but sometimes, may hold some unknown historical significance. I paid two dollars for seven photographs.
So, I took a few home and as I was painting on them, I realized that these were really symbolic moments in people's lives. Graduations, parties, weddings and I know nothing about these people but it made me sort of sad to realize that someone (or they themselves) decided that these moments were meaningless or at least not meaningful enough to keep.
It may be a very ambitious idea, but it's the process of attempting to restore significance to a dead or abandoned memory.
Editor's note: If you'd like to participate in Reema's project, please contact us jaffatelaqlam@gmail.com for details. Reema is looking for old photographs. Abandoned or personal photographs are very much welcomed.