SOUVENIRS DE L'AVENIR
group show

Kempelengasse 8, 1100 Vienna
June 16, 4 - 10 PM

ARTISTS
Animal Bro
Monica LoCascio
Chinara Majidova
Margarita Merkulova
Marija Šabanović
Rychèl Thérin

CURATED BY
Ramiro Wong, Ale Zapata, Justina Špeirokaitė

IN COLLABORATION WITH
QUESTION ME AND ANSWER
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Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know. (...)
(T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')

SOUVENIRS DE L'AVENIR (Memories from the Future) is an attempt to redeem an irredeemable time by turning the present into the echo of the past. The artists in this group show explore repetitive and thematic movements proving that nothing is an accident and that pure randomness can be denied. They speak of rebirth, transformation and transcendence in a place halfway between humans and nature, and the connection of memory and identity. They question one's dependency upon what one remembers, knowing that as memory begins to disappear, so does identity. They admit that though we cannot stop the passing of time, we find ourselves in the simultaneous presence and absence.
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