SEPTEMBER 2021            

They stimulate us, invoke emotion, and serve as inspiration for the future. When these memories are intentionally altered—perhaps by ignoring, forgetting or blocking them—we can often cope with the impact. If these memories are unintentionally altered by physical demolition or removal of the stimulus that molded them, we cannot always figure out how to make them seem real—again.

Being able to only partially see things that once fully existed within our respective spaces and communities, is a battle that all Washington, DC natives are familiar with no matter the generation. It is our individual responses to these experiences and collective memory bank that causes palinopsia—a visual experience causing us to continuously see or remember a visual cue that is no longer there.

As DC natives, Atiya and Eden have both witnessed changes in the city’s landscape over the past 20 years; however, they each view these increasingly rapid distortions through different lenses—literally and figuratively. You are now invited to take a look through each lens and discover how the artists interpret and conceptualize palinopsia induced visual experiences within our Chocolate City.

To reveal the hidden layer of what we see behind these photos, download Artivive, the augmented reality app. (iOS/Android)