Frozen Memory

Email pitch to Clarisa sept 08

The Frozen Memory Project (working title).

Sam Woolf and Bronia Evers

This is a project about two very valuable things: memory, and childhood. It is about communicating to children living now the childhood experiences of older generations who may have grown up in very different circumstances. 

The entire premise of our project is based around a very simple metaphor; the idea that memories could be captured by freezing them in ice-cream. As the ice-cream melts in your mouth, the memory is released and comes alive, and in a vibrant multi-sensory way the the original experience of that memory is relayed to you.

The Frozen Memory Project is an interactive theatrical performance that takes place inside an ice-cream van. This van will act as a mobile performance space that can visit schools and childrens’ festivals in the UK and in Germany. Inside this ice-cream van, actors will give children special flavours of ice-cream that contain memories, and these memories will come alive through an interactive performance involving film, sound, digital technology and puppetry.

The familiar ritual of buying a treat from a travelling ice cream van will become the starting point for an intriguing interactive learning experience. This experience will forge a link between current generations and the past, and widen children’s understanding of the breadth of human experience and the surprising differences and similarities between the ways people have lived in the past and the way we live now.

The first phase of this project will be to collect memories from individuals in the UK and in Germany. These memories will be recorded as audio files. In the second phase, the memories will be ‘processed’ by our creative team, who will bring these audio narratives to life using a range of media including atmospheric soundscapes, digital film, and puppetry.

In the third phase of the project, the van will tour to schools and festivals, giving children the opportunity to experience precious memories from the past, bridging cultures and generations.