February 17–24, 2021
Memory can refer to the faculty of the mind that stores past thoughts and images, or to the commemoration of someone or some place through the act of recalling. Through a series of short films,
Welcome to the Memory Palace, curated by Pleasure Dome’s Clare Samuel, presents the architectures of memory, both personal and institutional, as fallible—at times even suspicious. Using archival footage as their primary material, each film engages a form of memory keeping that asks its viewer to watch slightly askance. From Sharlene Bamboat’s unreliable narration, to Madeleine Aimée’s childhood recollections, the gaze of Hesam Rahmani’s dementia patient father, Andrew Lima’s exploration of geological and ancestral memory, John Akomfrah’s future memories, Anna Spence’s existential AI, Jennifer Dysart’s recuperation of cultural erasure, and Sara Angelucci’s photographic lie, each of the films plays etymologically with the dual meaning of memory. They honour a subject or place while attempting to piece together a recollection of something that can never truly be whole.