A HISTORY OF HOLLOWS

2024

"My mother has been suffering from memory loss, and I’ve taken it upon myself to trace her past through objects, stories, and the house in which she came of age.

In 2020, my brother and I had her live closer to us. She was living in a house that belonged to my grandmother—an old apartment that had been with my family since the 1960s. Over the course of three years, we slowly emptied it and moved their belongings to the new place. My mother lived there as a young girl, and moved back later when my grandmother died some years ago (she also suffered from memory loss). Last year, I was tasked with selling the apartment.”

A History of Hollows charts Micaela Benedicto’s attempt to inhabit her mother’s mind. Through photograms of objects she took from the house, reflective silver prints mounted on sculptural forms, a rotating installation, and a collection of stories, Benedicto creates an internal world of voids. From a blueprint drawn by grief, she contends with the puzzling future of memory within the prism of the old house and their family’s relics. Where the act of remembering is molded as a real, physical system projecting into and receding from space.

An architect, musician, and visual artist, Benedicto draws deeply from what she knows well to give form to what remains uncertain. Faithful in 1:1 scale and fleeting in figure, the works make tangible a space (and a mind) that is fascinating, curious, and wavering.

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