Won Ju Lim's Memory Palace Illuminates Los Angeles at Night

At Bâtiment BPS 22 in Charleroi, Belgium, from March 15 to May 18, 2003, artist Won Ju Lim presented her installation "Memory Palace" (Palais de la mémoire), a series of nine large shadow boxes titled "Terrace 49." The works evoke the aura of a Los Angeles neighborhood where Lim once lived, using layers of transparent and translucent materials shaped like trees, hills, and houses, backlit to project shadows onto Mylar screens. Each box, 100 x 50 cm deep and 1 to 2 meters long, is lit differently with varying numbers of warm or cool light sources, creating atmospheres ranging from welcoming to unsettling nocturnal cityscapes. Lim draws on experiences of Los Angeles at night, including the sound of helicopters and their searchlights, to create dioramas of empty residential landscapes. The works stimulate memory, referencing both specific and universal places, and fuse photography with traditional shadow puppetry. The exhibition was reviewed by Jody Zellen, translated by Marianne Groves.