Living Memory (Asher Young Studio) at ARTXNYC

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2. Living Memory (Asher Young Studio)

New York City-based artist Asher Young of creative direction, design, and producing studio Asher Young Studio (AYS, fka CYI Studio / Challenge Your Imagination) recently announced Living Memory, an interactive piece that evokes memory in its truest form: intangible, ephemeral, and fleeting, but deeply affecting. The installation will launch on October 10 at ARTXNYC (409 W 14th St) and will be free and open to the public from 11am-6pm ET, Thursday through Sunday for three weeks until its final day on October 25.

Living Memory asks viewers to submit photos of lost loved ones through the studio’s website here. The installation then generates holograms of those individuals, creating a piece where viewers are invited to inhabit the same physical space as their memories. As viewers approach the image though, it fades away. In doing so, the piece presents memories as both present and unobtainable. Living Memory offers two experiences: a repository and capsule of other people’s memories and a physicalization of a personal memory that previously only existed in the viewer’s mind.

Created by Asher Young, Living Memory is the culmination of eight years of development. The concept originated for Young’s theatrical piece Reverie, a re-interpretation of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan that explores the loss of Barrie’s brother David as the genesis of Neverland. Seeking to portray David in memory form, Young developed original three-dimensional, volumetric hologram technology to create a truer representation of memory – that which cannot be touched or altered. “After the show completed its run, the idea of representing memory stuck with me,” Young explains. “I had an instinct to push this concept further. How can more people experience this? Could it become its own installation that allows individuals to grapple with their own memories?”

“For those who have seen it, there have been a spectrum of emotions – ranging from joy in the gift of sharing physical space with a lost loved one to hesitation and sorrow during the online submission process,” he says. “I’ve found that the piece can serve as a mirror for the viewer, eliciting unexpected processing. In hindsight, I’ve recognized that a subconscious motivator for the piece are losses I experienced myself: I had lost a few loved ones important to me each year in the years leading up to originally creating Reverie.”

Follow Asher Young Studio here for the latest details about Living Memory and other upcoming works.

Living Memory Exhibition Details:

ARTXNYC, 409 W 14th St, New York, NY 10014

Oct 10-13 - 11a-6pm ET

Oct 17-20 - 11a-6pm ET

Oct 24-25 - 11a-6pm ET