THE MOMENTOTEM PROJECT

by Laura Snape

The Momentotem Project is concerned with the way events of the past can be memorialised through architecture, as 'artifacts of identity'. The project imagines a space designed to represent the site on which it sits: its people, its past, its particularities. The Momentotem Museum takes the form of a subterranean sculpture park, located in the footprint of an existing artificial mound within Mile End Park. It features 'exhibits' depicting the memories of the 5 fictional Body Agents developed in Term 1; hybridised figures incorportating fragments of the contested Elgin Marbles and that of members of the Cook Family, real former residents of Longfellow Road, which cut through the site. The proposal seeks to expose the palimpsest nature of the site, by selecting and drawing on aspects of history and reincarnating its previous states and uses.