Exhibited:
Lighthouse Main Gallery, Poole, Dorset, UK
23 November 2019 – 8 January 2020
Civic Centre, Barnsley, UK
14 – 29 June 2019
(Duodecimal MA Fine Art Exhibition)
Lost – A Journey Through the Fragile Mind is an immersive installation exploring memory, perception and cognitive fragility. Combining film, suspended elements, shadow and spatial navigation, the work invites the viewer to move through and into the environment, encountering partial visibility, distortion and uncertainty.
Originally developed for the Duodecimal MA Fine Art Exhibition in 2019, the title Duodecimal referred to the twelve international artists who completed their MA studies together through the Open College of the Arts (UCA) and exhibited collectively at The Civic, Barnsley.
The installation is available for exhibition, with a larger expanded version planned that transitions from light into darkened space.
For exhibition enquiries:
jacquibyrne@btinternet.com
Below: A breakdown of the different elements of ‘Lost – A journey through the fragile mind’.
Above: A clip from the film projected through the suspended elements of the installation.
The suspended element within the installation captures fragments of the projected film.
The shadows formed and held within the installation echo the fragile and ephemeral nature of memory.
Here I introduce human presence within the installation. The work is designed to be walked through and experienced physically, with the viewer moving amongst its suspended elements.
Meaning
Lost – A Journey Through the Fragile Mind was inspired by conversations with my mother during the early to mid stages of dementia.
The installation is composed of several interrelated elements: film, suspended fragments, shadow, human presence and ephemerality. The film was made on location in our farm orchard — a place of quiet beauty where my mother loved to walk.
Drawing on the atmosphere and energy of that space, I worked with abstracted landscape pieces on paper and canvas created in and around the orchard. On the reverse of each fragment, I printed faded and indistinct imagery using varied techniques. These fragments were then suspended and criss-crossed on red string throughout the orchard, repositioned within their originating landscape.
The film moves through this environment, guiding the viewer on a journey through layered, fragmented and dissolving imagery — a meditation on memory, disorientation and the gradual experience of forgetting.
(See expanded explanation below.)
Still from the film: Lost – A journey through the fragile mind:
Above: Still image taken from the film ‘Lost – A journey through the fragile mind’
©Jacqueline M Byrne
Expanded Meaning
Lost – A Journey Through the Fragile Mind
Lost was filmed on location in my spring orchard in Dorset and later reconfigured within the gallery, where the moving image is projected through the suspended installation.
This is an immersive, large-scale work intended to be walked through and experienced spatially.
The installation was inspired by conversations with my mother during the early to mid stages of dementia, alongside research undertaken during that time. It explores memory loss, detachment and the fragile relationship between perception and reality.
The Filmed Orchard Installation
The orchard setting was chosen deliberately: a sensorially rich environment in spring — blossom overhead, bluebells underfoot, birdsong surrounding the viewer. The camera moves slowly through this flowering landscape, creating what I think of as the serenity of not knowing — a moment of immersion in beauty and presence.
This calm is interrupted by the sudden, mournful call of a raven — a sound captured spontaneously during filming. The interruption jars the space. Calm gives way briefly to disturbance before returning once more. These ruptures echo the experience described to me: moments of clarity fractured by sudden realisation that something is wrong.
Fragmentation
Suspended throughout the installation are abstracted landscape and seascape fragments cut from larger works made in and around the orchard. On the reverse of each piece, faded and indistinct images of people have been printed using varied techniques.
The fragmentation and repositioning of these elements blur their original coherence. The imagery becomes partially obscured, ambiguous, difficult to hold — mirroring the involuntary fracturing of memory.
The fragments are suspended on red string lines that criss-cross the space. These lines reference neural pathways — activity, connection and disconnection — suggesting the shifting circuitry of a mind experiencing loss.
Repositioned Within the Gallery
When installed in the gallery, the red lines appear broken and reconfigured. The film projection is disrupted as it passes through the suspended fragments, layering moving image onto fractured surface. The image becomes unstable, dispersed, interrupted.
Human Presence
The viewer is not separate from the work. Moving through the installation, their body intercepts light, casts shadow and becomes integrated into the projected imagery. Presence, absence and ephemerality coexist within the space.
Extending Meaning
Although rooted in personal experience of dementia, Lost extends beyond a single narrative. It invites reflection on broader experiences of loss — memory, identity, certainty — and the fragile structures through which we construct understanding.
Exhibition History
Lighthouse Main Gallery, Poole, Dorset, UK
23 November 2019 – 8 January 2020
Civic Centre, Barnsley, UK
14 – 29 June 2019
(Duodecimal MA Fine Art Exhibition)
The installation is available for exhibition, either in part or in its entirety.
For enquiries: jacquibyrne@btinternet.com
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