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2025

Future in the Past

What if our memories are not entirely our own?
What if the fleeting images and sensations that fill our consciousness are echoes of a collective past or glimpses of an imminent future? How can artistic practice translate these intangible recollections into visual form?

Memory has long been a focal point of artistic exploration, serving as both an anchor and a conduit — a means of preserving, interpreting, and reimagining our relationship with time. Perhaps this fascination stems from a desire to mend historical fractures, to bridge personal and transgenerational experience, or to find stability in an ever-shifting present.

For Belarusian artist Natalya Zaloznaya, memory is both subject and medium. Her paintings are infused with a profound sense of introspection, offering a visual meditation on the fluidity of recollection. Blurring the lines between personal and collective memory, her work transforms fleeting impressions into layered compositions, echoing the ways in which history is continuously rewritten.

Dutch artist Jule Cats explores the interplay between memory and architecture, drawing from her experiences living in buildings marked for demolition. Her IN DISGUISE and RISE series reflect a deep engagement with impermanence, loss, and transformation. By repurposing discarded materials, Cats constructs tactile, evocative surfaces that challenge conventional notions of beauty and permanence — revealing the silent narratives embedded in urban spaces.

Danish artist Johannes Holt Iversen approaches memory as a process of material reinvention. His sculptural works exist at the intersection of past and future, merging industrial aesthetics, cultural heritage, and speculative design. Through hybrid forms that appear both ancient and futuristic, Holt Iversen disrupts linear perceptions of time, prompting viewers to consider memory not as a static archive but as an evolving, multidimensional force.

Through distinct yet interconnected artistic languages, Future in the Past reconsiders the nature of memory: is it a relic of the past, a projection of the future, or something more fluid — shifting, reshaping, and transcending time itself?