Accompanying the 2017 Portico Library Reminiscence Project for people with dementia and their carers, five contemporary artists consider different aspects of ‘memory’. Asia Triennial Manchester Director Alnoor Mitha, Neo Artists’ Maggie Hargreaves, Jameel Prize nominee Saima Rasheed, Bankley Studios’ Stacey Coughlin and Cult Party’s Leo Robinson offer a variety of starting points for thinking about what memory is and the role that it plays in our lives: where it comforts or troubles us; where it motivates us to preserve our world; where it helps to build culture and identity; where it brings us together; where it gives form to our personal stories.

From the ‘Waters of Lethe’ of Ancient Greek myth to Wordsworth’s ‘spots of time’; from intimate Mughal miniatures to the Preservation movement’s founding thinkers, art and literature continually return to themes of memory.