United by a shared fascination with memory, and the ways in which photography and sculpture render the past, El Berger and Clarine Lee collaborated on “Timeclock,” a duo exhibition at The Frame Gallery on view January 31-February 2, 2025.
“Timeclock” brings together the works of School of Art seniors El Berger and Clarine Lee, offering deeply personal explorations of memory’s fragility and persistence. Berger’s journey of self-discovery as a Chinese adoptee unfolds through her lens — transforming images into tactile objects like hand-stitched film negatives and repurposed photo slides. Lee similarly bridges photography and materiality, working with temporary tattoo paper and hand-embroidered textiles to pay homage to physical representations of memory, such as a scar or a birthday letter from her father, ultimately investigating both what is lost and what is preserved.
El Berger
El Berger with "Time Machine"
“It took me a while to figure out who I was as an artist. Because I have this experience of being adopted from China, I’m stuck between two worlds. And even if there’s a third category, I don’t necessarily fit in that either. Art has been a way for me to reconnect with and experience a culture that I didn’t have growing up. I started off with photography because my mom did photography, and then I started to incorporate sculpture really to create a narrative of my life. People who are adopted tend to hold that experience to themselves, and when you tell people, it’s very exposing. I can communicate that through my work without feeling shame or regret. This project called Time Machine is compiled from every single photo that I’ve taken on film in my lifetime. I got to see how my point of view, my personality, and what I was interested in changed over time. These fragments of time are sewn together in my mind, which I’ve replicated kind of based on a childhood night light or lantern.”
Clarine Lee
Clarine Lee with "Letters of Illegibility"
“I wanted to talk a lot about mistranslation and illegibility, how memories are lost in the future. Every time you recall a memory, you use a piece of it. For me, photography has this flat, sterile quality to it, because it captures the truth. But textiles are the complete opposite — they’re soft, interactive, nostalgic. I wanted to pull qualities from photography that can be nostalgic and soft, like referring back to the past, and integrate those together. A lot of my pieces are meant to be touched and changed over time. I want people to touch it, because then it gets a little bit more loved every time.”