An old photograph—a portrait of an unknown woman that I stumbled upon by chance—became the starting point for this project. Something about her expression, particularly the uneasy look in her eyes, reminded me of Dr. P., a patient of American neurologist Oliver Sacks. Dr. P. was the subject of Sacks’ famous essay The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. At a certain point in his life, Dr. P. lost the ability to visually interpret the world around him. Although his eyesight remained physically intact, his brain could no longer recognize or make sense of objects and people. He perceived them only as abstract shapes and forms. Eventually, he reached a point where he literally mistook his wife for a hat. Interestingly, his auditory recognition remained unaffected—he could still identify voices and sounds. It was only the visual realm that became unmoored.

The image of this strange woman evoked not only Dr. P. but several of Sacks’ other patients—people living with fractured memory, suspended in a world devoid of personal biography or coherent past. They were lost, adrift in time.

This project became an attempt to construct a kind of mental map of a mind affected by memory disorders. Through it, I began to imagine a new biography for the woman in the photograph—a life fabricated from fragments, projections, and associations.

The installation consists of many components: photographs and objects resembling those we might each keep as mementos, alongside elements that are more universal and resonate with collective memory. Ultimately, this project is less about memory itself and more about the gradual, invisible process of forgetting.

Amelia Kent Returns Home (2013)

MAGDALENA  DUKIEWICZ