A new work of fiction by Hari Kunzru, best-selling author of Gods Without Men, forms the basis of this innovative book and exhibition, in which reading a story is translated into a three-dimensional visual experience by leading typographers, illustrators and graphic designers. Hari Kunzru has conjured a dark vision of a future in which not just books but remembering itself is banned and a small group of renegade memorialists is all that stands in the face of total oblivion. From the point of view of one of their incarcerated members, Memory Palace takes us through his fragmented memories as he lies trapped in his cell, clinging to the belief that without memory civilization is doomed.
An essay by the exhibition's curators, Laurie Britton Newell and Ligaya Salazar, unpicks the intentions and process behind this innovative project, while specially commissioned work by Robert Frank Hunter and drawings from the exhibition's collaborators illustrate the book.