Recollection

The National Art Center Collective Memory Archive
Our memories of the city are only fragments of real concrete places, they are rather recorded places rendered immaterial by our thought and emotions, virtual images recollecting an original which can never again concretely exist. 
The NAC Collective Memory Archive explores this idea by suggesting a “depository of experiences” as an addition to the National Arts Centre. The addition, which also serves as a grand new entrance to the center, collects and stores unaltered memories of events from visitors which others can access through a series of virtual –reality immersive environments. These events reconstruct fragmented experiences (Some for public, some for private use).  Experiences are collected from visitors to the NAC in specially designed extraction rooms. Digitally stored in underground servers, each memory and experience adds to the growing collective public memory of the NAC. The project forms part of a growing network of collective memory archives spread across the city and the country. People use these new spaces to actively participate in and are reminded of their shared memory, common joys and fears, nostalgia, and the various values that make up their heterogeneous identity and culture.