Building a Collective Archive: A Yale Traveler's Mnemosyne is a curatorial project that explores the impact and update of personal references in constructing a collective imaginario - a repository of collective imagination. Curated by architects Gabriel Hernández (Fulbright Visiting Fellow at Yale) and Alberto Martínez (La Caixa Foundation grant), the exhibition will be on display from 31 August through 6 October 2023 at the North Gallery space at Yale School of Architecture (YSoA), located at the iconic Rudolph Hall in New Haven, Connecticut.
Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory who inspired cultural scientist Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne, provides a symbolic reference for devising a collective archive based on the YSoA community inspired by the italo-brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi's archival practice. This framework exemplifies a devotion and ritual towards collecting, with an attention to the arrangement and habitual viewing of those objects, characterizing a particular relationship to the act of collecting and constructing memories.
When Bo Bardi migrated from Italy to Brazil in 1946, she carried her inner references through several items collected over decades. Once in her new homeland, her fascination towards local traditions and vernacular culture drove her to acquire new objects, expanding her imaginario. As a result, a porous and mutable archive and unique collection in constant update, blending the stories of migration, travel, curiosity and memory.
