Living//Room

Curated by Emma Gasterland Gustaffson

Artists: Laura Jaramillo, August Henry, Hannah Mahr, Emily Dzieweczynski

February 2021 

Living//Room is an installation of living space populated by pieces that examine the spatial memories within the home. After months of being intimately connected with our indoor lives, we have had to become more acquainted with the identity we have formed through our living spaces. In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic brought on a period of isolation prompted by the need to stay home. Events were cancelled, schools transitioned online, public gatherings were unsafe. This isolation granted us the privilege of time: Time to settle into our homes and examine our nest of memories and the identity formed alongside it. Our living spaces are intrinsically alive with memory. We approach these spaces through our personal connection to the objects, the colors, the smells and sounds that surround us. In Walter Benjamin’s essay, “Excavation and Memory”, he outlines how we might approach memory as though we were conducting an archeological dig. As we return again and again to the same matter, we unearth the memories we have subconsciously imbedded into space. The act of remembering is an act of personal archeology. This exhibition displays the artifacts of this process.

Through video, sound, and installation, Living//Room hopes to provoke a deeper sense of personal exploration and excavation into remembering the stories that inform our nests of memory.