Mynd Palace – MFH Manning

I consider the series ‘Mynd Palace’ as one large painting, in which I am given the space to introduce myself to the viewer. Right now my life, like many others, is limited. I dream of the adventure and I am ready for the next stage in life; maturity.

The famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, packs a lot of information into his head, and he has to be ready to draw out those details as he makes his deductions and solves the most mysterious of mysteries. For this he uses a mnemonic device straight out of ancient Greece—the mind palace. A mind palace (also known as a memory palace) is basically a structure you build in your imagination. Sherlock goes there to retrieve memories and information to put together answers to solve crimes. In this series you can see my own mind palace.

Although I am not physically visible in every image, the whole is a reflection of myself as a person. In the first image, the viewer sees my mind palace for the first time. The space itself doesn’t give away much. The interior resembles a palace, there is a bird in a cage and an empty frame hangs on the wall. The second image shows a self-portrait, but perhaps leaves the viewer even more in the dark. However, this is the image in which one can find repetition; in the list we see part of the previous image. When we look at the third image, we see yet another piece of an apparently larger whole. This image is full of symbolism, also called Easter eggs in movie language. To name a few examples; the chess piece, the queen, is not bound by any rules. She’s free to go anywhere, just like me. The observant viewer reads my name vertically in the first letters of the poem. In the fourth image we end up in a personal space. This room is filled with both reality and fantasy. Here some of my dear relatives meet complete strangers and there is room for the unknown future. The fifth and last image shows a déjà vu. The viewer has seen such a setting before. The last image essentially shows a copy of the first. The cycle is complete, but there is a slight difference; the list is filled and the bird has fled.