Mission Misplaced Memory
An audio-visual installation that explores our connection through memory
"A blank room was transformed into a beautiful haven for memories and ideas."
"I entered a space where life suspended itself for a while."
Mission//Misplaced Memory is a site-specific project that uses research, performance, sound and visual installation to explore the ways personal and collective memory shape one another.
Based on a time-traveling spaceship, each "mission" features a specially designed interactive audio-visual installation manned by Memory Gatherers who collect memories from visitors using text, audio recording or discussion.
Talks on personal, biological and collective memory take place throughout the residency from specialists such as academics, human rights lawyers, evolutionary biologists, linguists and club promoters. An artist-in-residence draws from the memories gathered and produces a new artwork at the end of the residency. Artists have included Young Poet Laureate Caleb Femi, composer Bobby Jane-Gardner and illustrator Jacob V Joyce. Mission reimagines the think tank as an accessible, dynamic and provocative creative space, bringing people together from different backgrounds to reflect on transformational shifts in society.
Missions have revealed the “misplaced memories” of British colonial history (Mission to the Land of Misplaced Memories, Tate Britain 2015) the memories buried within our DNA (Dreamed Native Ancestry, Arts Catalyst 2018) and forgotten memories of play (V&A Museum of Childhood 2016).
Devised by Gaylene Gould and dubmorphology, Mission//Misplaced Memory has been supported by Arts Council England, and commissioned by Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Arts Catalyst, Vivid Projects, Selfridges, Moderna Museet, Sweden and V&A Museum of Childhood.