Cate Solari
Spatial Memory
2023
Spatial Memory enacts playfulness, community, and cognitive recall. It offers visitors an opportunity to rediscover the joys of childhood play while promoting and fostering a connection between individuals and their environment. The interactive installation recreates the working mechanisms of bead maze children's toys, on an impressive scale.
Playing with a bead maze in the doctor's waiting room as a child is the inspiration for this project. By enlarging the scale and transforming it into an interactive installation, visitors are encouraged to use their entire bodies to maneuver the beads along the tracks. This physical engagement will trigger both motor memory and episodic memory. Spatial Memory activates not only the conscious and unconscious memories of visitors, but also generates a physical memory within the grounds of the University of Connecticut Avery Point campus.
Through repeated use, the grass beneath the installation will gradually wear down, creating visible pathways. These pathways will serve as a residue, a tangible reminder of the project, even after its removal. Like neural pathways, these physical pathways represent the collective memories and experiences of the visitors who engaged with it. By leaving a trace on the landscape, the installation will continue to hold these memories, enriching the university campus with a lasting impression of Spatial Memory's shared experiences.
About the Artist
Cate (Catherine) Solari is an interdisciplinary artist and educator, working throughout New England. Her work investigates physical, psychological and social spaces to echo the norms, roles, and rules of human behavior. She is particularly interested in the transition between child and adult states of body and mind. Through sculpture and her ongoing series, Collaborative Play, Solari aims to reactivate our capacity for playfulness beyond childhood.
Recognized for her talent, Solari has exhibited widely in venues including: Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, CT, Sullivan Center in Chicago, IL, Comfort Station in Chicago, IL, and the Barnes and Franklin Gallery in Farmington, CT. She has received several grants and awards for her work and teaching, including the esteemed University of Connecticut’s Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year in 2022. Solari holds a MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art institute of Chicago, and currently teaches ceramics at the University of Connecticut and Westfield State University, Massachusetts.
On the horizon, you can find Solari and her work at ChaNorth Artist Residency this July, and in residence at the Vermont Studio Center this October.