The origin of the project idea and the development of the artwork including all processes from the beginning. The beginning of the creation of this artwork arose before the time of my mother’s pass- away in 2007. It is the told story of when my mother was a teenage girl in Laos having to travel across the border to Thailand due to the revolution in Laos in 1975. A piece part of the story as an origin opened up a new perspective of getting to know my mother as a Laotian which was a story that she never told. Her photo raised questions about her past that she had never told. Small dust particles floating around in one area of the house covered her photograph. Small dust particles are invisible to the naked eyes, at a certain point in time, the invisible floating dust becomes visible to the eye when the incident light is at the proper angle. “Whenever the incident light appeared then dust particles could be seen. But even without light, the dust particles still exist.”

If living together is an experience and the experience is one of the components of memory formation. The assembling this memory space, it must be an area that expanded the scope or was compacted as much as the imagination launched at that moment. Therefore, memory is a space that cannot be bounded. There is not any borderland that has an area in the measurement unit. The direct experience of confrontation contributed to the formation of memories in many aspects. Sometimes, trying to remember something does not confirm that the subject matter is permanent. Conversely, the experience of a shared memory between mother and son at the beginning of this story, was only a small area in a very short time. Little story that try not to remember but is still ingrained in the memory just like a shadow that doesn’t leave a distance.

Over 10 years, an imperfect story of the mother had been still lingering in my memory that pushed the force in creating the artworks. The search of information from stories, the interviews with Mrs. Kham and Mr. Gaii, who had experience with mother. The details of the narrative do not confirm or influence the historical beliefs of anyone. If that the context area, events, and narratives of the mother reflects on mother’s life as a new memory and moves around in art space which have been created as representation. It’s a part of knowing and understanding. Crossing borders as territory and space may not be the goal of trying to reach. Crossing the present borderland to go into the borderland of memory is regarded as an important part of how moving images opens up a space of possibilities and confirms the existence of the space of memory. A space of memory that was rummaged and

found was an unpredictable border that mixed between the curiosities as well as the dilemma feelings as caused by understanding.

In the process of creating an ideal image to reflect the perspective on the stories in Vientiane Laos in 1975, the appropriation of photographs by journalist and photographer Norman Peagam and photographs from a traveler, Bob Carlsen, in order to create this artwork. Wide-angle landscapes and telephoto views had been brought in synchronize with the narrative to create the ideal images through the experimental process of creating images in Alternative Process Photography. The visualization of the process of the Alternative Process Photography is formed by a chemical reaction that works when the incidence light is on the plane surface coated with a photosensitive substance and, that creates the new appearance, shapes, form, light and shadows to reappear as to represent the pictures in memories. Finally, the reversed process of developing photographic (Negative – Positive – Negative).

The visual field of memory from the experimental process of creating works had reduced the details of the original images. The creation of the new atmosphere of the landscape in order to reflect the perspective on the story in memory is comparable to an opportunity to travel to explore the borderlands of memory. The small dust particles floating in the space move around to create the memory space. The enlargement and projection of dust particles to be bigger that can be seen in several planes of the art space aimed to persuade the interpretation of the existence of things that may not be as visible as compared to dust. “The dust of commemoration” is therefore like a “shrine of remembrance” to affirm the thoughts of the departed person.