When you close your eyes and think back on past memories, what do you see? 

The term ‘Phantasia’ comes from the Greek word for “imagination.” As a scientific and literary phenomenon, it has adapted to describe our ability to see immaterial items in the “mind’s eye.” Like memory, visualization is not incorruptible, and it changes shape with time to fit evolving truths. The nature of a memory is defined by its ephemerality, the recollections of which are warped by perception and emotion. 

Our memories specifically those of adolescence, brings about feelings more clearly identified in adulthood. 

While the idyllic family meal is associated with warmth, communication, and togetherness; for many, memories of the dinner table also conjure feelings of isolation, anxieties, or turmoil. Do our visualized memories look different through the filter of emotion? Do images blur, colors amplify, or objects change in size? As we grow, how do our childhood memories, good and bad, look differently to our mind’s eye? In considering these questions, Phantasia offers perspective through the work of contemporary artists who attempt to visually convey the amorphous emotion contained in a memory.

Constance S. & Robert J. Hennessy Project Space