Client

Overview

Our Memories is an audience participatory installation of brain-inspired, translucent sculptures. These neuron inspired sculptures contain cavities in which participants place a color-coded memory stone during opening events. The memory stones are color-coded into six emotive categories: joy, anger, love, sadness, fear, and surprise, based on Plutchik’s wheel of emotions. Once the sculptures are filled, they are sealed. The Our Memories project is both a collective memorial piece, made complete by thousands of individual memories from people all over the world, and an experience that connects us to our core and to one another.

Process

Through collaborating with the NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program and the Governor’s Island Art Fair, Our Memories has been installed in several sites in New York City since 2016. The larger vision of Our Memories is to add new and distinct memory sculptures with each installation, ultimately collecting emotions and memories from people all over the world. During the installation participants transform the sculptures by recalling a powerful memory and then depositing its representative memory stone into a sculpture. This active process of recollection not only stirs up personal memories, it also physiologically generates a new “collective memory”. The work is both a collective memorial, made complete by hundreds of individual memories, and an experience that will connect participants to the present moment and to one another. Our Memories enables the community to celebrate and honor their memories of the past, while also looking ahead to the ever-evolving future.