V&A - Memory Palace

The Memory Palace exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museuem is a collection of 19 works by different artists that illustrates a story using graphic design and 3D form. Each artist was given a passage from Hari Kunzru's book (see outline below)and had the opportunity to interpret it however they wanted. 

"Hari Kunzru's story is set in a future London, hundreds of years after the world’s information infrastructure was wiped out by an immense magnetic storm. Technology and knowledge have been lost, and a dark age prevails. Nature has taken over the ruins of the old city and power has been seized by a group who enforce a life of extreme simplicity on all citizens. Recording, writing, collecting and art are outlawed.

The narrator of the story is in prison. He is accused of being a member of a banned sect, who has revived the ancient ‘art of memory’. They try to remember as much of the past as they can in a future where forgetting has been official policy for generations. The narrator uses his prison cell as his ‘memory palace’, the location for the things he has remembered: corrupted fragments and misunderstood details of things we may recognise from our time. He clings to his belief that without memory, civilisation is doomed."(1) 

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The variety of artists commissioned for the exhibition meant that there was a diverse range of media and form used, however most were graphic design based. For example graphic designer Henning Wagenbreth created a tower made out of wooden blocks (plan above), painted with brightly coloured words and designs. The drawings are in a folk art style. This contrasts with the serious message of the piece which demonstrates the construction of society as well as how culture is formed in subtle ways. 

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Mario Wagner created a collage depicting the magnetic storm in which people are being lifted from the ground and everything is being destroyed. Wagner uses cut outs from vintage magazines and papers. The balaclavas on all the peoples faces and the mainly black and white colour scheme of the piece creates a sinister look while the metal objects scattered around the scene adds a feeling of chaos.

I was really interested by this exhibition as i had never seen anything like it before. The fact that each section was by a different artist demonstrated the contrast in how people see their memories. I noticed that all af them were abstract to some extent, representing how the images in our mind become distorted and fused together over time.

(1)http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-sky-arts-ignition-memory-palace/about-the-exhibition/ - accessed 22/09/2013

(2)http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/18657 - accessed 22/09/2013

(3)http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/sites/default/files/wagner_large_0.jpg - accessed 22/09/2013