iii:
Objects
Memory exists in the space in-between, it’s the things we notice after a project ends. It is personal, it is social, often shaped by the people, spaces, and objects we encounter. We hold onto shared moments and revisit them through the objects we choose to preserve, from books to videos and merch to voicenotes.
In late 2019, I had the privilege of working with Solange and Deflina Foundation on In Past Pupils and Smiles, Solange’s self directed and composed closing performance at the Venice Biennale. Over four days memories formed, not all at once, but through a sequence of small, charged moments. For hours, crowds gathered in the rain outside the Teatro alle Tese, drawn together by curiosity and a sense that something was about to happen. What unfolded inside became a shared memory held by everyone who passed through it.
The monograph that followed in 2022 became the anchor for that experience. Created by Solange and Saint Heron, designed by Querida and published by Anteism, the book holds the energy of the performance in another form, preserving the movements, the bonds formed and the atmosphere of the Biennale’s final, flooded days. For the first time, pages of conversations and James Mollison’s photographs offer a way back into a moment that would otherwise dissolve into time. My friend Jade became one of 16 gatekeepers within the performance, together we waded through the flooded streets, ordered the wrong coffees, and in turn she is captured within the pages of the monograph, living on beyond those shared moments in Venice.
Photo: James Mollison
In this way, books become more than objects, they carry the energy of a moment forward, holding memories that might otherwise fade.
In recent years, books and libraries have become the archetypal brand experience. Beyond the aesthetics, there is a deeper intention to create spaces that invite reflection, where curiosity is shared and built over time. From Miu Miu’s Literary Club at Circolo Filologico Milanese to Aesop’s travelling queer library, these spaces have become markers of time, inviting us to reimagine and reinterpret by ourselves, or together. But what is it about books that allows them to preserve experience, or even create new ones?
Photo - Miu Miu Summer Reads, 2025
Es Devlin’s Library of Us (for Miami Art Week 2025) invites a new type of community interaction and conversation. A 50-foot revolving bookshelf holds thousands of books that have shaped Devlin’s thinking, inviting readers to gather around a shared table, encounter new texts, and each other. Throughout the day, reading becomes a communal exchange, and when the week ends, the books are donated to libraries, passing that experience into new hands and spaces.
Our memories of what’s gone before are always moving, taking shape in the books we read and the spaces we inhabit. They are carried forward by the people we collaborate with, the ideas we share and the conversations that begin to emerge from them.