A visual memory

Rotterdam as an intrinsic city. The challenge was to Map this city other then how it usually expresses itself. And since I believe stories and experiences make up the fabric of a city I started collecting it’s memories. I wanted to make the city more human, more personal. I interviewed 148 people and asked them about a memory, any memory.

Since we remember things on multiple levels I also asked for the colour, smell and sound of the memory, since those 3 elements play an important role in the way we remember things. Of course if one mentions a particular smell that goes with a memory it doesn’t necessarily mean that it actually smelled like that at the time. This didn’t matter at all. This project is based on how we construct our own memories and the fact that these aren’t clear stories.

…. we tend to think of memories as snapshots from family albums that, if stored properly, could be retrieved in the same condition in which they were put away. But we do not record our experiences the way a camera does. We extract key elements and we then recreate or reconstruct our experiences rather then retrieve copies of them. Sometimes we add feelings, beliefs or knowledge we obtained after the experience.” (Iosif Kiraly ‘reconstructions’)

In addition I also wanted to know the location where the memory took place. These locations were ‘mapped’. Since some places were mentioned more then others, these locations became more dominant in the book, and thus the map of Rotterdam was reorganized.

The pages of the book were made of chalk paper, to enhance the fragility of a memory and it’s temporal existence. In addition several index pages were created so that people could retrieve the memories in various ways.