LOST MEMORIES Comes to Slough Next Month

Lost Memories is a multi-screen video installation that draws on screenwriter Gary Thomas' experience of being a carer to his mother, who has Alzheimer's Disease. Combining documentary phone footage with fictional sequences, Gary Thomas's film installation at The Curve this spring will offer a moving and poignant insight into his lived experience as a caregiver.

Focusing on the personal experiences of being a carer, Lost Memories will share Gary Thomas's experience of looking after his mother. The installation will feature personal diary extracts and real phone call footage, capturing the heart-breaking but also joyful moments of their relationship. The display will be spread across a three-screen installation, which audiences will be able to walk through.

Gary Thomas seeks to convey the texture of lives that revolve around the confusion behind dementia, and the demands of caregiving. His installation aims to provide recognition for the large number of carers who look after their own relatives, as well as showing these moments of clarity, and the joy within these. Lost Memories seeks to uncover the lived experience of caregiving, which can often feel more hidden and taboo in today's tabloids.

Gary Thomas is a writer and filmmaker based in South East England, and has previously worked in theatre and has produced four stage shows. He has also worked across several moving image works including: Madness as a form of relaxation (2005), Coming out (Dada South) (2006), The Dog and the Palace (2012), Sectioned (2016). When curating Lost Memories, Thomas interviewed a diverse range of disabled artists and other creatives about their practice to enable him to explore his own unique style of working.

Author and Screenwriter Gary Thomas comments, I've often used my own life as inspiration for writing and my work in film. Being me, when my mother was diagnosed, and even before, I began recording and filming moments of our life that we shared together, both the good times and the difficult emotional times, some in audio, and some as film. I suppose I wanted a record of it, without knowing whether anyone else would see it at all.

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