What I’d Come to See Had Already Gone

The title of the exhibition, drawn from Roy Scranton’s book We’re Doomed. Now What? Essays on War and Climate Change (2018), expresses a quest with an uncertain destination. The boundaries between past, present and future seem to blur throughout an experience marked by the transformative passage of time and memory. Through various lens-based media, both real and imaginary landscapes emerge, characterized or animated, depending on the artist, by shadows and lights, dust and fog, cracks and fingerprints. The liminal spaces feel inhabited by intangible presences. The mostly newly- created works, amongst which two site-specific installations and a hand-bound book, also invite reflection on how photography seizes moments that vanish, both as a revelation and as a proof of their past existence, like theorised by Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida (1980).

Serge Ecker – In murmurare, Serge Ecker investigates the ghostly imprint of human absence in landscapes shaped by an industrial past, capturing traces of survival rather than ruins, while evoking both personal and collective anxieties about time and loss.

Aap Tepper – By uncovering hidden layers of time and material decay, Aap Tepper reimagines archival photography in Long Exposures, transforming historical glass plate negatives into new visual artifacts that challenge perception and memory.

Birgit Püve – Drawing on depopulated landscapes where the mountains seem to dissolve into the sky, Birgit Püve explores the interplay between solitude, exile, and mystical oneness in Ihidaya, reflecting on the shaping of mental and spiritual worlds. 

The exhibition was first held at the Rüki Gallery in Viljandi (April 5–May 18, 2025). It was made possible thanks to the support of the Estonian Cultural Endowment and Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg.