Autobiography poses questions around authenticity unique in non-fiction writing. An autobiographer may use facts, figures and first-person accounts, much like a historian, but those who choose to recount their own histories must also rely on much more ephemeral sources. For all memory is fallible and fragmentary, it still serves as a prominent source for many autobiographers. The process of reconciling your memories with what others present recall and squaring these collected memories with historical events often leads to conflicting reports and incompatible timelines. Questions surrounding the autobiographical self are compounded in graphic memoirs, where self-representation becomes another key to unlocking one’s past. The act of drawing makes the subjectivity of the author manifest in all facets of the narrative.

Using her own childhood memories, Kat Lombard-Cook attempts to interrogate how mnemonic story-making is at the heart of identity formation. While there may appear to be no overt coherence between memories of her father’s post-divorce apartment and a walk in the woods behind her familial home at age 5, both stories are retained and retold subconsciously in order to emphasize certain facets of herself. How is the self our memories author different from the self we perceive? Can these disjointed fragments of past experiences coalesce into a narrative whole via engagement from a reader? Are there methods within the practice of art-making that can expand the limited memories at our disposal to show us a broader picture of our past? These are the questions at the heart of Kat’s practice. This exhibition draws from work created in the first two years of her PhD in Design, ‘Analyzing and Interrogating Narrative Structure Through Comics’, which she is undertaking at the Edinburgh College of Art with the supervision of Glyn Davis and Beverly Hood.