Lost – A Journey Through the Fragile Mind
Exhibited:
23 November 2019 – 8 January 2020
Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset, UK
This installation is available for exhibition. A larger iteration is planned, extending from light into darkened spaces to deepen the immersive experience.
For exhibition enquiries:
jacquibyrne@btinternet.com
Above: Clip from the film projected through the suspended elements of the installation
The hanging element within of the installation captures fragments of the projected film.
Shadow, made by and captured within, the installation, are intended to portray the ephemeral nature of memory.
Above: Here I am, adding human presence to the work. This installation is designed to be walked through and experienced.
Still image from the film.
A close up of one of the hanging pieces within the installation.
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 brings together film, suspended fragments, red thread, shadow, human presence and ephemerality. It was first created and filmed in the springtime orchard on my farm in Dorset — a place my mother loved to walk. The orchard became both setting and metaphor: a space of beauty, growth and quiet repetition.
Abstracted landscape works made in and around that orchard, some of which, were cut into fragments. On the reverse of each piece I printed faded, indistinct photographic images, of family members. These fragments were then suspended on intersecting red threads throughout the orchard, repositioned within their originating landscape.
The resulting film walks the viewer slowly through this suspended field of memory — through layers of fading, fractured and partially obscured imagery — echoing the experience of a mind in the process of forgetting.
(See Expanded Meaning below)
Expanded Meaning
This work exists in two states: the filmed orchard installation and the reconfigured gallery installation.
The Orchard Installation (Filmed Work)
Filmed in spring, the orchard is presented as a sensorially rich environment: bluebells underfoot, blossom overhead, birdsong surrounding the viewer. The camera moves slowly through the suspended fragments, creating what I think of as a serenity of being — a moment of presence without anxiety.
That calm is intermittently interrupted by the sudden call of a raven, recorded spontaneously during filming. The sound jars the quiet atmosphere. These interruptions mirror the unsettling realisations described to me during my research — the sudden, sharp awareness that something is wrong, before calm returns again.
The fragments themselves are portions of larger abstracted landscapes. On their reverse sides, broken and faded images of family members are printed using layered techniques. The act of cutting, fragmenting and repositioning creates distance from the original image — visually enacting the distortion and dislocation of memory.
The red threads on which the pieces are suspended criss-cross through the space. Deliberately suggest neural pathways — connection and disconnection — activity and breakdown. The structure appears delicate, yet taut.
Repositioning in the Gallery
When reinstalled in the gallery, the red threads were broken and the fragments hung freely. The projected film passed through and across these suspended pieces, breaking and reforming as it moved.
The moving image is therefore never whole. It flickers across surfaces, is interrupted, refracted and layered. Memory becomes unstable, incomplete and shifting.
The Viewer
The installation is designed to be walked through.
As viewers move within the space, their bodies interrupt the projection. Their shadows merge with the fragments. They become physically and ephemerally embedded in the work.
In this way, the viewer is not separate from the subject — but implicated within it.
Extending Meaning
Although rooted in personal experience, Lost opens outward. It engages with broader conversations around memory, identity, ageing, care and the fragility of human cognition.
It is both intimate and universal — concerned not only with dementia, but with the vulnerability inherent in being human.
Exhibition History
Lighthouse Main Gallery
Poole, Dorset, UK
23 November 2019 – 8 January 2020
Presented as part of a Dorset Visual Arts (Salon Collective) exhibition.
Duodecimal MA Fine Art Exhibition
Civic Centre, Barnsley, UK
14 June – 29 June 2019
Originally developed and exhibited as the culmination of my MA in Fine Art (Open College of the Arts).
This installation can be made available in part or in its entirety for exhibition.
For enquiries: jacquibyrne@btinternet.com
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