Are our memories real or fantasy?
Extraordinary exhibition at JW3 is a fascinating mind journey using puppets and film
Louisa Walters is Features Editor at the Jewish News and specialises in food and travel writing
Our thoughts and memories are unique to us and no-one can really get inside our head – but a new exhibition at JW3 is the imagining of a journey through the mind of a lady as she reflects on her remarkable life.
Visitors are invited to walk through a giant brain into Minnie Rubinski’s world, where we see, with the use of creative puppetry and filmmaking, her extraordinary life from childhood to the present day.
This was a life lived to the full – as a classical pianist, an investigative journalist, a mother, an art dealer and a saviour of the world from giant reptiles, and it is as fantastic as it is fantastical. We are left to wonder how much of it is true – and to question whether it even matters if any of it is.
Puppeteer Kim Bergsagel created the production in homage to her mother, Sondra Rubin, who grew up in New York. Sondra now has dementia and lives in a care home in Hampstead.
“Ninety-five percent of our memories are false,” says Kim. “Our emotional state of mind at the time of each experience affects our memory of them and in many cases photos can define them. Now that my mother has dementia her memories are muddled and often fantastical. But this isn’t an exhibition about dementia. The aim is to explore someone’s fantastic life who happens to have dementia.”
Technology is used to bring beautifully carved marionettes and intricately detailed sets to life and you can make your way around the exhibition in any order you choose.
I highly recommend stepping out of your world and into Minnie’s for an hour while you can. It’s fascinating, magical and extraordinary.
The Fantastic Life of Minnie Rubinski runs until 28 November in The Dorfman Piazza at JW3. Tickets are £10. jw3.org.uk
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