Entering the mirror ‘the eyes are mirror of the soul’

Chiara Catalini

2022

Cognitive capabilities are profoundly altered in people with dementia. As memories are erased, faces and once familiar places are no longer recognizable, causing confusion and disorientation in the affected minds. More than ever in this condition, the concept of space and identity show their visceral connection. The project reflects on the changing conditions to which memory is subjected by narrating the personal connection between a person with incumbent dementia and the house in which she lives. 

Using photogrammetry (a technology capable of reading ‘depth’ and translating it to spatial coordinates), the mirrors of the house are used as portals to access the complex world of memories, giving a speculative glance at the dementia-affected mind. Suspended elsewhere in time, in the yearning for a truly personal world, the mirrors become tools of cognition, doorways, and metaphors for subconsciousness.

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