Reconfigurations of Space, Memory and Absent Designers at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial

Performance design exhibitions struggle with the loss of their ephemerality. In some cases, curatorial teams recontextualize the exhibited artefacts with new narratives superimposed on the objects. During the 2019 Prague Quadrennial, the Fragments exhibition commemorated the life achievements of several distinguished performance designers through the inclusion of a singular representative artefact. The exhibition’s audience interrogates these selected artefacts for absent memories and past ephemeral acts: a design studio, a scenic model, a soundscape, a critical piece of scenery, or an iconic costume piece. The resulting exhibition offers a canon of visual images related to performance – yet, what does this convergence of memory, historical context, dramatic literature, and performance design artefacts really communicate to the audience?