Memory Work

Memory Work is a collective futures project.

Incubated within From Later’s studio, Memory Work is a platform, a portal, and a practice of getting curious about what kinds of world’s we could create, while also staying rigorous and realistic about the future challenges we may face. It’s a project of imagining and critiquing futures by way of present day inspiration, and also drawing on our pasts — personally, genetically, spiritually, and mnemonically. We see this process of worldbuilding through futures-feeling rather than strategic thinking; more about securing a vibe than predicting future events.

Memory Work imaginess a future Toronto that prioritize collective care and a politics that value nurturing over growth.

This project bagain in 2019 when Natasha Singh and Alica Hall approached From Later to collaborate on a small exhibition, This Woman’s Work, dealing with the past, present, and futures of women’s labor. In 2020, the Memory Work web platform launched as part of the Museum of Toronto’s Myseum Intersections festival. The website includes a speculative audio scenario, inviting listener’s to visualize potential futures of Toronto. It is intended as material for meditation, stimuli for imagining collective future memory.

Memory Work mushroomed into a continuous program of events, workshops, experiments, talks, stories, film concepts, durational performances, a public monument, and the Memory Work Collective.

The immersive audio track invites listeners to visualize — in the mind’s eye — a possible future environment. Listen at the original website, www.memory-work.com.

‍ We encourage you to use Memory Work's resources; question and iterate on the scenarios and worldbuilding; generate your own future experiences, visions, vignettes, and artifacts.