You Have a New Memory

Drawing on image fragments, incomplete records and partially told stories, this exhibition traces a path through State Library Victoria's vast collection to consider how a library remembers.

The format of a slideshow evokes intimate family occasions, as well as today’s algorithmically generated version, as your phone announces, ‘You have a new memory’.  

The images form a narrative about the Library as both idea and institution. Images and text sit beside one another without fully aligning, producing unexpected connections and meanings. Shelves, boxes, server racks, and staff at work remind us that accessing memory depends on curiosity, organisation, and care. 

We hope this encounter becomes an invitation for you to do the same: request something from the shelf, turn a page, and find a new way of storytelling, thinking with the past while pointing it toward the future. 

Guest co-curator Rory Hyde.
The Victoria Gallery is endowed by the John and Myriam Wylie Foundation.