Originally from the installation feeding ourselves the wrong memories for survival, this two pack of porcelain peanuts is a perfect token to keep in your pocket or share with a friend.

About the installation
feeding ourselves the wrong memories for survival,
784 porcelain peanuts weighing approximately 10.5 pounds

Dimensions vary by installation with each porcelain peanut measuring roughly 1” in length and ½” in diameter.

There’s always something in our pockets. Something to remember something by. Something to cling to. When I first came across the idea of a peanut, I was in awe of how perfectly it fit cradled in between my fingers and my thumb. Just like the tiny keepsakes I’d give to my children on uncertain school days, these petite porcelain peanuts served as mementos to help us survive one moment to the next.

When I thought about peanuts holding memory, I quickly made the connection to that of the elephant based on two preconceived notions: elephants eat peanuts and elephants never forget. Known to have the largest brain of all land mammals, weighing in at approximately 10.5 pounds, elephant herds have a matriarchal structure with one older female in charge. The wealth of experience of the matriarch is believed to be due to her photographic memory and the ability to retain these memories for several decades, passing them down through future generations of female leaders, ensuring memory as a means of future familial survival.

But then my research took a turn when I came to learn that elephants don’t eat peanuts. Peanuts don’t grow in the wild. The visual of elephants eating peanuts only exists due to an early marketing ploy to ensure circus goers felt a sense of safety under the red tent next to these shackled giants. Even in captivity, an elephant's diet doesn’t actually consist of peanuts.

In feeding ourselves the wrong memories for survival, I explore the idea of examining what memories we’re holding onto, determining whether they’re aiding in our forward movement and familial survival or instead, further confining us in our own cycles of emotional captivity.