You Can Call Me What You Want, I’ll Remember What I Can People's Choice Award

Call Me What You Want, I’ll Remember What I Can, is an archival image collage that takes the form of both a healthy brain and a brain that suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. Watching my grandfather, Norman, suffer from the disease has been truly the hardest thing that I have had to witness. Now, as a college student, his absence has been weighing on my mind and spirit as I attempt to piece together who I am without him.
I became interested in what my grandfather saw during his sickness. Although I was there to witness many of his psychotic outbreaks, I believe what I saw, and what he experienced during his psychosis are two very different things. After research into the disease and the physical effects that Alzheimers has on the brain, I decided that I wanted to create an art piece that showcased the erosion of the brain.
Have two sides, a ‘healthy side’ and a ‘sick side’ using archival imagery helps to illustrate the heartache of memory-loss. The ‘healthy side’ is fuller, brighter, and intricately filled with normal archival images. The ‘sick side’ is smaller, less full, but still intricately filled with distorted, black and white images.
The title, Call Me What You Want, I’ll Remember What I Can, stems from a letter that my grandfather wrote me. In the letter, he wrote, “Everyone calls me Mr.Pezze, but you can call me anything you want.”

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