As if it is still there waiting for me

The story of memory is a story of interiors. The rooms we inhabit—dwell in for long periods—often shape how we remember the events of our lives. Rooms contain us, and internally we contain them (1). They provide us unintended assistance by becoming mnemonics, bending themselves from mere shelter into our very own memory palaces. After all, dating from ancient times it has been said that memory palaces should be based “on real palaces and places” (2). Having the blueprint of a floor plan internalized saves on mental labour, leaving focus for recall and sifting of memories attributed to various virtual rooms. In addition to actively using this mnemonic device, the practice functions within us unconsciously. “The rooms we live in are collages, constructed conversations between the past and the present” (3). Through one site, two or more time periods exist simultaneously; a superimposition, multiple exposures. The exhibition 'As if it is still there waiting for me' at CPR² by Nadine Byrne continues the artist’s focus on memory and mourning connected to physical sites, as well as processes of mapping the ephemeral, working through and with it in tactile methods. The site represented in this exhibition is the artist’s childhood home in Stockholm. Following the death of her mother, the apartment is captured in video recordings, empty on moving day, the camera meandering—seeking something. “A house changes after somebody has died: there is suddenly too much space” (4). This is further amplified when the home is vacated after the loss; it stands bereft of all things, only the markings, material wear on the space itself, remains. Yet it feels full. “Our vision of the house splits in two: we see it as we imagine it once was, and in its present state. The latter image is just a ghost of the former” (5). Yet maneuvering in the space we may still trip on a now non-existent rug, like we always did (6). Byrne’s raw video footage is transposed in the exhibition space, forming a new palimpsestic mapping. The projection becomes the focal point for the dispersed audio/visual essay that makes up the exhibition. Providing a temporal counterpart, audiocassettes recorded years before in the same family home by the artist’s father playback from a tape deck. A glass plate obscures a diagram of the home’s layout; a tapestry hangs, inscribed with text written by the artist, providing a thread of voice-over made tangible; a performance by Byrne further activates the materials present. ___ (1) Hollis, Edward. The Memory Palace: A Book of Lost Interiors, Berkeley, Counterpoint, 2014 (Portobello Books, UK, 2013), pp. 27. (2) Ibid, pp. 29. (3) Ibid, pp. 27. (4) Dillon, Brian. In the Dark Room, London, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018 (2005), pp. 79-80. (5) Ibid, pp. 27-28. (6) Ibid, pp. 38. ___ Performance: '1987/2005/2022' 
 Saturday September 17, 2022 at 2 pm
 Components of the exhibition become the setting as three temporalities combine in Nadine Byrne’s performance '1987/2005/2022'. 1987: audiocassettes recorded by Byrne’s father in their family apartment, during an era of unremembered life, are played back in fragments. 2005: projected video footage captured on moving day; the perimeter of the now empty apartment is traced by a former self. 2022: a live reading of a newly written text, near 18 years on from those final moments in the apartment, and a further 18 years from those unremembered sounds emanating from the audiocassettes. These dispersed elements are interrogated and temporarily reformulated into a cohesive whole.