The Royal Palace is opening its doors as the Memory Palace, a unique, interactive experience exploring connection, dementia and the best we can be for one another.
3 July – 16 August
Royal Palace, Brussels
Why the Memory Palace?
This walk through the Mirror Room brings the “shadow participants” out of the shadows. Dementia affects not only the person living with the condition, but also those close to them. Seventy percent of people with dementia still live at home and are cared for by relatives or loved ones. In this way, the condition affects three times as many people than the people with dementia themselves: family, friends, caregivers, healthcare workers, colleagues, neighbours, …
Despite the difficulties the condition causes, a meaningful and good quality of life often remains possible. Communication with people with dementia can be difficult and demanding. But the people involved with them are not only bearers of burden, they are above all creators of connection. So we can view these shadow participants as “hidden resources”, even in especially challenging circumstances.
We can shift the focus from connections between brain cells to connections between people. Dementia is more than memory loss; it also involves a loss of communication. Good communication emerges from resonance: moving along with the rhythm of the other person.
While rocking together, calmness and attuning can arise. It would be wonderful to bring generations closer together and enrich one another by, for example, giving every child at least one opportunity to have a positive encounter with an unfamiliar older person.
The experience within the Mirror Room invites us to reflect one another and to build our own memory palace. While we wait for the miracle pill, our fellow human beings remain the best medicine.
A walk that lingers in the memory
As you walk through the Hall of Mirrors at the Royal Palace, you are invited to join in doing small, meaningful things together. Things that seem obvious, but which are sometimes no longer so. A gesture. A glance. A moment of genuine attention.
The interventions you’ll encounter along the way are scientifically grounded and human in nature. They’re intended for everyone, whether dementia has already touched your life or not. Because this project is about the person behind the condition. It’s about the connections that remain possible, even when words fail us.
Preferably bring someone dear to you.
The location: the Hall of Mirrors at the Royal Palace
The Hall of Mirrors at the Royal Palace is no accident. It is the ideal setting to illustrate what connection really means: people attuning themselves to one another, sensing each other’s rhythm, living in the same moment for a brief instant.
A memory palace has traditionally been a mental journey through familiar places. For the first time, we are turning this technique on its head. Not as an individual exercise, but as a shared experience. Not to store information, but to bring people closer together.
The Hall of Mirrors is normally only open during the summer months. This year, it is opening its doors with a special purpose: as a space for connection, imagination and wonder.
The two pioneers of connection, imagination and wonder
The Memory Palace is the result of more than ten years of collaboration between science and art. Between word and form. Between Dr Kasper Bormans and the creative duo at Unik-ID.
Dr. Kasper Bormans
Dr. Kasper Bormans obtained his PhD on dementia at KU Leuven and is affiliated with Maastricht University, where his research focuses on imagination, connection and wonder in communication with older people and people with dementia. He is the author of inspiring books such as Making Time for People with Dementia and Swinging to the Rhythm of People with Dementia. In 2024, he was awarded the noble title of baron by His Majesty the King of the Belgians for his groundbreaking work.
Unik-ID
Unik-ID translates human stories into powerful visual experiences. It is their conviction that environments shape people, and that these environments can consciously be transformed into supportive, inspiring, and above all imaginative spaces. Their projects bring people together, with art serving as a connecting force. The collective consists of Sven and Christelle. In their work, they are often guided by both the vulnerability and the resilience of the human mind. In 2021, for example, they placed a giant hat on the Atomium to draw attention to mental health issues.
What people say
While we wait for the miracle pill, our fellow human beings remain the best medicine.
— Dr Kasper Bormans, Baron, dementia researcher
More than 150,000 visitors are expected. After the opening, we will fill this space with their words.
Preferably bring someone dear to you.
You can visit the Memory Palace on your own, but the experience becomes all the more meaningful when you share it with a partner, a parent, a child or a friend. With someone you love, or someone you haven’t really seen for far too long.
The Hall of Mirrors at the Royal Palace will open its doors on 3 July 2026. For six weeks, it will welcome everyone, whether dementia has already affected your life or not.
3 July – 16 August 2026
Royal Palace – Place des Palais 1, 1000 Brussels
Open to all
This project came about thanks to people and organisations who believe that science only matters if it touches people’s lives. We are grateful to them.
