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Memory Matrix & Jewelry MakingFamily friendly - adult with child image.

The Memory Matrix is a living monument that explores the possibilities for future heritage creation, employing new fabrication techniques and transcultural collaborative workshops. The Matrix takes form of a giant screen made of border fences carrying over 20,000 small fluorescent Plexiglas elements. These elements are laser cut in the middle with holes in the shape of vanished heritage from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond. Arranged into a larger matrix, these pixels collectively reveal an image of Palmyra's Arch of Triumph. This collaborative making process is a seed for a longer-term mission of the project - to benefit the education of Syrian refugees. As a research project, the project explores how heritage threatened by war can be documented to become indestructible evidence.
The project was conceived by ACT Assistant Professor Azra Aksamija and is produced with the help of a diverse range of partners within the MIT community and participants from the Maker Faire in Cairo and Syrian refugee camps in Jordan. More than an art installation, the Memory Matrix is a solidarity-building and educational enterprise.
The Memory Matrix is on display in front of the E15 from April 23, 2016 – May 7, 2016
Participatory jewelry making worksop will be held in front of the E15 on April 23, 2016 from 10am-12pm
Participate and create new pixels: http://www.memorymatrix.org/
Memory Matrix is produced with support from a number of different departments and entities: Office of the Dean from SA+P, Office of the Dean SHASS, ACT Program, Center for International Studies, Arts Initiatives of SA+P, Center for Advanced Urbanism, CAMIT, MIT Libraries, AKPIA, Global Studies and Languages, Comparative Media Studies / Writing, Literature Section, Office of the Dean for Student Life, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Women's and Gender Studies at MIT. Other forms of support are provided by: Department of Architecture, Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT, MIT Alumni Association and MISTI.

The project team will be present all day and give an artist talk at 10:30am.

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