Memory Palace

Reviving memory’s initial sense is a means to create immediate links between one’s personal history, cultural background, and a contemporary artist’s practice. Taking the form of a field-research, Memory Palace spans the diversity of the territory of Montreuil ; it pictures different social practices and cultural refrences. The young artist Violaine Lochu collected Montreuil inhabitant’s memories in order to create a sensitive map of the city she went through. More than 200 people in Montreuil have participated in the artist’s ongoing project Memory Palace. Contributions have been made in more than 30 languages. The artist learned in turn all contribution by heart, to rearrange and organise them according to the ancient technique of ars memoriae, where mental images are associated with rooms in an existing (or imaginary) building. The resulting overall impression of the city’s memory is as historical as it is personal, political, poetic, sentimental, and surely refresgingly diverse. Giving form to a series of interventions – vocal performance, informal meetings, dinners – all the contributions are shaped into an artist’s edition.

 

PERFORMANCE


EDITION

SOUND PIECES

Anadiplosis #2, 2min50, 2015

Souvenirs, 2min58, 2015

Ode to love, 5min32, 2015