Memory Teahouse
Memory Teahouse
Memory Teahouse is a participatory installation that explores memory, place, and collective healing through tea, conversation, and community storytelling.
Created in response to the devastating fires across Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu, the work began with a simple question:
What happens when a community loses not only homes, but the places where everyday memories once lived?
Drawing inspiration from the Japanese chashitsu (tea room), the installation is composed of suspended translucent textile flags printed with imagery of post-fire regeneration. Together, they form a lightweight architectural structure that invites visitors to pause, gather, share tea, and reflect.
Inside the Teahouse, visitors are invited to write a memory connected to place—a moment of joy, grief, belonging, or everyday life. Each memory is tied to the surrounding walls, gradually becoming woven into the installation itself and transforming the work into a growing archive shaped by the communities that participate.
Rather than commemorating loss alone, Memory Teahouse creates space for remembrance, connection, and renewal. As the installation travels, each presentation expands the archive with new voices, allowing the work to evolve alongside the communities that shape it.
Developed during Faith-Ann Young's residency with the City of Santa Monica and supported by the Doan Foundation, Memory Teahouse premiered in Malibu at the Creative Visions Foundation before traveling to the Altadena Healing Village in 2026.
Participatory Installation (2026)
Faith-Ann created the series of textile flag series by photographing signs of life and renewal after the January fires in Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu this September.
She built each composition by merging images she photographed of nature’s resilience —birds, new regrowth—with the textures and hues from the abstract paintings she made in response to the fires, to create her distinct, dream-like images.
She then printed these unique works on to delicate chiffon, sewn, and hung with care; the works stand as testaments to survival.
The installation offers a place for sitting, sharing tea, reflection, storytelling, and shared presence. The series is intended to be traveling - and works both indoor and outdoor.
As people are welcomed into the space, they wandered slowly between the suspended textile flags, allowing themselves to settle into the atmosphere before sitting down to write.
Guests were invited to pause, reflect, and write memories of the place before the fires.
Each note was written on architectural drafting paper because it is used to imagine what comes next.
In Memory Teahouse, it holds memories of what came before, carrying them forward into the future.
Watching strangers sit together over tea and quietly write these memories reminded me that art doesn't always need to provide answers.
Sometimes it simply needs to hold space. The community does the rest.
Memories that might otherwise remain unseen become visible. Stories that may never have been spoken aloud are shared, witnessed, and carried forward together.
In Altadena, people wrote:
"This is where I share my medicine."
"This is where coyotes howl, birds sing, poppies push up from the earth, where tears mix with hillsides beneath oak branches, where resilience grows, spreads, and embraces."
"This is where I found peace and community."
In Malibu, one visitor wrote:
"This is where childhood magic happened, where I fell in love with the ocean and all its creatures."
Memory Teahouse was developed during Faith-Ann’s residency with the City of Santa Monica and made possible through support from the Doan Foundation.
She’s also grateful to the Creative Visions Foundation and the Altadena Healing Village for welcoming the work into their communities.
As Memory Teahouse continues to travel, Faith-Ann will continue collecting these memories, allowing the archive to grow alongside the communities that shape it.
