2902 Gallery presents “To Remember” a unique collaboration between a Finnish and a Singapore artist. The exhibition showcases 42 photographic works, 5 sculptures on the dialectic nature between remembering and forgetting.

The memory is mysterious.

“I remember”, “I can’t recall”, “My impression of this is hazy” – These are remarks that pepper our daily experiences and consciousness. But what exactly goes into the process of retrieving memories? How does an archive of recollections materialize and expand? Why do we forget? In this exhibition, artists Tristan Cai and Milja Laurila launch an inquiry into overlapping themes of memory and death culminating into biographical narratives. Working across diverse mediums of photography, sculpture and text, their distinct approaches and motivations weave an intriguing dialogue about critical nostalgia and its devices, which extend beyond the boundaries of personal histories into our immediate social environments.

Approaching photography as memory, Artist Tristan Cai say,” I wish to challenge the historical baggage that forbearers of photography have created for its successors. The importance that the medium has established for itself in fields of reportage and journalism since its invention, has seen it being abused to advance political ideals and commercial greed. And often, the genre has been overly romanticized…perhaps till the point of pretension.

On the other hand, for artist Milja Laurila: “I have grown up looking at childhood photographs but it felt strange because I could not remember anything but had to believe all these experiences existed because of visual evidence. This led me to think about photography's relation to memory. For me, photographs do not bring back memories; they are silent and need words to accompany them.”

-2902 Gallery

Image: © Milja Laurila