The memory palaces of Do Ho Suh and Anne and Patrick Poirier

Abstract

The memory palace, as introduced in antiquity, has been an inspiration to artists, especially since Frances Yates’s The Art of Memory was published in 1966. This article explores the relationship between memory, the home and the memory palace in works by Do Ho Suh and Anne and Patrick Poirier. In Suh’s work Passage/s (2017–2018) outlines of rooms of former homes, made from colourful, transparent fabric and combined into new structures, allow us to study how these spaces retain individual memories, echoing the memory palace described by Cicero and Quintilian. Ouranopolis (1995), Mnemosyne (1990) and Janus (2018), by the Poiriers, combine interests in architecture and archaeology. Models of fantastical cities and archaeological remains resemble the human brain and function as metaphors, not of individual but of collective memory. Here, we feel the influence of the Renaissance fascination with memory palaces and in particular Giulio Camillo’s Theatre of Memory.