Memory is a Mediated Materiality. Encaustic practice and the materials involved with this medium allowed me to question what material or materialities technique in art can be used to re-create memory? Encaustic is the act of encasing and layering as a means to simulate the feelings of memory. Materials can have both significant cultural and embodied reactions that are sensory and tactile, but also related to our imagination and childhood memories. Encaustic is an ancient art form practiced by artists as far back as the 5th century B.C., originating from the earliest applications of paint by the artists of Ancient Greece. The word encaustic derives from the Greek word enkaustikos, meaning “to heat” or “to burn,” which refers to fusing and layering paint. This artistic medium involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments and tree resin are added. The molten wax is applied to a firm surface such as wood. The encaustic medium is applied in hot liquid form and returns to a solid state at room temperature. Brushes are used to apply and shape the wax before it cools immediately, like a dripping candle on the skin. There is no drying time, but the surface can continuously be reworked.

I have come to learn the resilient memory of smell through this practice, and it has become a liminal, mystic, and creative space. The connections to the material of candles and wax are remembered from my personal and cultural past. It is deeply connected to this sense of Jewish pilgrimage and communion that is part of my cultural identity. As a child growing up in Maghreb-style synagogues, I was carried through many Ziyara's Jewish pilgrimages to holy sites and shrines. These ceremonies and rituals were always accompanied by the preparation of candles.

Candles are primarily made of wax, a material that changes its viscosity based on temperature. When a candle burns, the heat of the flame melts the wax near the wick. This liquid wax has a lower viscosity compared to its solid form. The molten wax is drawn up the wick by capillary action, where it is then vaporized by the heat of the flame and combusts to keep the flame burning. As the wax cools and solidifies away from the flame, its viscosity increases, turning it back into a solid. The temperature-dependent change in the viscosity of the wax is crucial for the functioning of a candle. It needs to be solid at room temperature to maintain the candle's structure, but it must also melt and have a low enough viscosity to be drawn up the wick and burn effectively.

In the Ziyara rituals, candles being thrown into the fire join the flames of other candles. We store and preserve memory in objects, but also in rituals. The burning candles continued to be an affective experience for me, particularly in the last several years of my autoethnographic fieldwork in Morocco, visiting the Jewish pilgrimage sites, where I continued to carry this ritual of burning candles. But I remember the striking feeling and astonishment as a child, when I have been witnessing the flying white candles into the sacred flame during the Hillula pilgrimage of Rabi Baba Sali. The steamy smell of molten wax and the humming whispered prayers, while each taking turn to toss their candles into the blaze. I have developed a different approach to working with encaustic that is less about painting and more about writing. Inscribing and re-inscribing on the surface is a is a practice of memorizing and forgetting, accumulating layers of writing and erasing over time.