The Hidden Projection of Memory in Public Space

By Abby Schleichkorn ‘21

When you walk around campus, do you see the smiles shared, the friendships made, the tears shed, the place where the Peter used to pick us up, the exact place where you found out you got an A on THAT paper? I know I do. That is the unspoken language of place––I see my memories, and you see yours. Three and a half years ago, I stepped onto Wellesley College’s campus ready to make my mark on it, and now, with only three months left until I graduate, when I walk around campus, I see my memories overlaid onto the physical space of the campus. Public spaces are shaped by these invisible memories; memory is like a projector, and Wellesley College is my projector screen.

Wellesley College spans over 500 acres of land and 2,500 students call this place home from September to May every year. Filled with gothic revival arches, a classical library, and a campus center with no right angles, the physical monuments that make up the Wellesley campus are the backdrop for my memories of “home.” While Wellesley is a public space shared by many, as I walk through the hallowed halls, my projector rolls and I don’t see the empty space in front of me. Rather, I am catapulted back in time and I see the “hellos” in the hallways, the thousands of books that line my professors’ offices, and the exact spot where I fell down Wellesley’s infamously steep Death Hill––or the Abby Schleichkorn Memorial Hill, depending on who you ask––and needed 13 stitches across my knee.

While these spontaneous memories are forever catalogued in my head, Wellesley does put forth an institutionalized memory of the college in the form of a campus map. Detailed with drawings of the buildings, the roadways, and even the vegetation of the school, the map serves as a physicalized reproduction of institutionalized memory. But the map doesn’t include the thousands of pictures of the lake that are on my phone or memories from the nights spent on the steps of Tower Court. Throughout the last 150 years, students have rewritten the maps, not with permanent ink, but with a permanent, imaginary projector. Wellesley’s official map is unfinished business; the college relies on students’ memories to complete the accepted version of the landscape. My internal map is quite literally mapped onto the college’s official map, which almost makes the true map interactive, right?

Though the college promotes these institutionalized memories, students record over them with memories of their own. The Five Pillars bordering Lake Waban, for example, commemorate the College Fire of 1914. This is an institutional memory that the college honors; however, the pillars are now often the backdrop for Spring Formal pictures and a view from the Tower Court dorms. This official marker of Wellesley’s history has been incorporated into Wellesley students’ personal memories. When I look at the columns, I see the popping of champagne bottles from society events and Flower Sunday pictures projected onto their beige surfaces.

And while my individual projector shows me my memories of Wellesley, there are also collective memories that students will always share. Like a Wellesley Volleyball game or (dare I say it) Printergate, many students have recollections about events and milestones like these, but each person memorializes something different from the event. The Fieldhouse in the KSC is a public space, but when I think back to the Volleyball games that I went to, I remember coming straight from tennis practice, whereas my roommate came from her Art History class. Even these collective memories are individual in their memorialization. These layered memories are in a private language which is projected only by their creator.

As I am memorializing my last first move in day, last first day of the school year, last first day of tennis practice, everywhere I look is a highlight reel of my memories projected through space. Monuments are created all around us, whether or not we see or acknowledge them. Wellesley’s official map is one marker of history, but the map that I have created—with my memories projected onto it—is the history that I will forever replay in my mind.

Abigail Schleichkorn ‘21 (aschleic) is becoming increasingly more nostalgic about graduating and leaving Wellesley by the day, but she looks forward to never walking down Death Hill again. From the April/May 2021 issue.