Google defines nostalgia as being a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past. I’m wistful for a whole lot of things, like croissants on Christmas Day with cantaloupe cubes and the smell of butter and sugar creaming together in Nanny’s old, maroon Kenwood mixer (it smelt sweet and buttery but also like the Kenwood’s motor was on the verge of spontaneous combustion). It’s drinking scorching milo from your favourite plastic cup in front of Christmas movies because that’s all Nanny had on VHS. Well, that and the Wizard of Oz, but you don’t like that because it starts in black and white and you’re pretty sure it’s broken.
Nostalgia, to me, is making pasta necklaces and fruit loop bracelets and filling up an entire A3 page with drawings of exotic birds and jungle scenes. Nostalgia to me is a t-shirt I wore to death with an embellished, scented pineapple that coined me the name ‘Pineapple’ for years.
It’s the feeling of glue all over your fingertips whilst trying to pick up scraps of paper. It’s getting up early to watch Hannah Montana on Saturday Disney, but keeping the volume down at number 4 (5 if you’re feeling rebellious) because you know that won’t wake up Mum and Dad who are still sleeping on just the other side of the wall.
It’s the thrill of opening up your lunch order in that brown paper bag and popping the straw through the roof of a Big M before devouring a meat pie (or that weird Lasagna served in tinfoil). It’s the excitement of cracking open the perfect boiled egg and pairing it with vegemite toast soldiers, with lots of butter and cheese. It’s mum making you two minute noodles (chicken flavour usually, beef for special occasions) and adding chicken and cherry tomatoes and grated cheese and thinking it was the best meal on the planet.
Foremost, it’s creating things for the sake of creating, not for work, and it’s being proud of absolutely everything you make (even the self portrait you drew that is really a glorified potato with legs that mum stuck on the fridge with alphabet magnets).
Nostalgia To Me reflects upon a bunch of things that evoke ‘sentimental longing’, but it barely scratches the surface. The visuals take the form of ‘wriggly’ hand drawn gifs with purposeful imperfections to remind the viewer of the unabashed way we used to create. An Instagram page was set up to allow for interaction from the public, encouraging people to share memories and thoughts on anything the images might bring up. Some of these comments feature on this page when scrolling down.