Building a Memory Room

above: Marie Shannon
The Rooms in the House (2016) (Edition 1/5) 
[detail] digital video, courtesy of the artist

https://www.circuit.org.nz/film/the-rooms-in-the-house

Inspired by Marie Shannon’s The Rooms in the House (2016), which was recently acquired by Dunedin Public Art Gallery, we’d like to invite you and your family to build and share your own Memory Room. You might like to do this over a number of days, checking in with each other and ‘building’ a new room each day perhaps.

How to play: Send this invitation below to a family member who you have lived with in the past (or continue to live with).

Step 1: Think back to the time you lived together in the same house. How many rooms did it have, and what can you remember about them? Was there a place you liked to sit, or things you weren’t allowed to touch? Where did you eat your meals, or spend the most time? What was the first thing you touched or saw in the morning? Who was first to the kitchen each day?  Where did your pet sleep, and what was the best hiding place? 

Step 2: Choose a room from the home you shared (for example the kitchen, bedroom, family room, dining area)

Step 3: Each write, design, or draw your own inventory of what you remember in this room

Step 4: Share and combine your list with that of your family member, try colour-coding your text to separate out each person’s contribution

Step 5: Each add in personal memories or reflections of any items on this list – why you remember this object, where did it come from, what happened to it, how did you use it, where is it now, how does it make you feel? (try not to include real names or other personal information that you’d rather not share, or the address of the house you are re-imagining, so your submission can be shared publicly if you wish)

Step 6:  Email your final list to:
dpagmail@dcc.govt.nz to be shared as part of DPAGart@home (the final selection remains the decision of DPAG). Or simply share your response with more members of your family to continue to grow your Memory Room into a full-scale Memory House!

You can share this activity by forwarding this pdf file of instructions.

Or send them a link to this web page

Here are some examples of some memory rooms –
these are drawing versions:
Memory Room Example #1
Memory Room Example #2
and here is an example of written/list version:
Memory Room Example #3