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It is an ongoing series of site-specific video games that explore themes of memory and identity in virtual worlds. Named after the fictional medicine for sorrow, it takes us on a journey to the past. Widely regarded as the ‘Garden of Gardens’ and the pinnacle of classical Chinese garden palace design, the Old Summer Palace was destroyed by a combined Anglo-French expeditionary force during the Second Opium War in 1860.

In Lawrence Lek’s Nepenthe (Summer Palace Ruins) (2021), decolonial trauma transforms a standard playful pack of dogs into spectral “ghost dogs,” reconfiguring a familiar sight into a haunting pain. This demonstrates that perception is not merely a reflection of external input but a construction deeply influenced by mental state and emotion.

Through engagement with the work Lek explored The Doorway Effect, also known as the location updating effect. This is a psychological phenomenon where people experience short-term memory loss when passing through a doorway or moving from one location to another. This effect, which occurs with both physical and metaphorical boundaries, aligns with integrative theories of consciousness such as Global Workspace Theory (GWT) and Integrated Information Theory.