Commemorate
conclusion project of my graduation on Design – Visual Communication in 2020 in PUC-Rio
![]()
Commemorate is a research project on the orality of memory, a practice that has become increasingly rare with the growing fragility of attention and the obsession with recording. On creating spaces that put different people together, I bring proposals for participants to share, listen and exchange stories and personal memories.
The project aims to create spaces to experiment with new ways of relating to time, with oneself and with others, addressing the following themes: memory objects / affectionate foods / recurring dreams, which were chosen in order to explore different levels of tangibility from memory.
During these dynamics, that were done remotely with groups of 3/4 people, we observed our house and the everyday objects that are in it, which often become invisible. We thought about the smells, textures and people that remind us of some foods we love. We remembered our dreams together and realized their need for language – we need to hear them to know they exist.
Commemorate is a research project on the orality of memory, a practice that has become increasingly rare with the growing fragility of attention and the obsession with recording. On creating spaces that put different people together, I bring proposals for participants to share, listen and exchange stories and personal memories.
The project aims to create spaces to experiment with new ways of relating to time, with oneself and with others, addressing the following themes: memory objects / affectionate foods / recurring dreams, which were chosen in order to explore different levels of tangibility from memory.
During these dynamics, that were done remotely with groups of 3/4 people, we observed our house and the everyday objects that are in it, which often become invisible. We thought about the smells, textures and people that remind us of some foods we love. We remembered our dreams together and realized their need for language – we need to hear them to know they exist.
![]()
The result of what was recorded from these meetings was used as content for the development of some experiments based on the conception of exhibition spaces.
1. Memory stools
For the first space, I designed a series of stools, with interference from different plastic techniques, such as photographic transfer to the wood surface and to fabric, plaster, overlaying and extraction of paint with thinner and sewing lines. The space would feature stools arranged in a circle, placing people who visited it in group. They would receive headphones with audios of the stories reported during the meetings, sharing this listening with other visitors.
2. Recipe to remember
The second space would consist of a table with small glass bottles that keep recipes for foods of affection from each person who participated the dynamic and a story by them about this food. The bottles would be, symbolically and concretely, a memory of this space.
3. Dreaming together
The third space is a dark room that transports people to a dreamlike state of relaxation and, at the same time, imaginative stimulation. The space is made up of pillows placed on the floor so that people can lie down and look at a video projected on the ceiling - this change in perspective leads to taking a position conducive to dreaming. The video is composed of fragments of dreams from different people, through a narration that unifies them, transforming them into a collective dream. The mixture of reality and fiction in the video narrative is accompanied by images of the drawings developed during the dynamics that appear and overlap.
I used the projection as a resource during the video editing, transferring the images of the drawings and scenes that I filmed in recent months to the rooms of my house: door, bed, windows, ceiling – the place where I dream.
