What do we know about the time we’re living in? Geopolitical power relations are shifting constantly. Today, we encounter the emotional backlashes of the West-East binary having been taken down with the Berlin wall 35 years ago, leaving us with less prominent and scattered power constellations in which to find our coordinates anew. This disorientation is enhanced by the gigantic collective challenges posed by the legacies of all post- and neo-isms (post- & neocolonialism, neoliberalism, post-covid traumata, short for all kinds of ideologies in a global age).

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The question that drives us, both individually and collectively, is how to give voice to or find words for this state of being? ‘In Search for the Present’ is a borrowed title from the recently published collection of translated essays by the versatile, ingenious Flemish writer Stefan Hertmans (Die Suche nach der Gegenwart - Essays für eine Zeit der Übergänge, Diogenes, 2024). Healing words in a time of transition. Hertmans’ essayistic diagnoses of the present follow a similar attempt as the five artists we have selected to benefit from and to contribute to FUTURES, in sensing, finding and expressing their orientation points on the current open sea to become potential light beams helping us to navigate through the present.

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For the selection, we considered all artists who showed their works in our format Artist Feature during the year 2023. Every week, Artist Feature enables photographers and image makers to present their previously selected single image in the context of its larger original series, after having been part of either a collaborative project or featured in our monthly Guest Room. Within this already preselected Artist Feature collection, we were seeking outstanding quality and/or innovative approaches despite any thematic correlation, their countries of origin/residence or professional backgrounds. Nevertheless, the selected artists all thematize – though very differently – personal, emotional, geopolitical or societal shifts. To the question posed at the beginning of this text regarding what we know of the present, Hertmans responds that only one thing is for sure – that we feel when things are changing.

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All five artists we have gathered together here are courageous explorers of their own worlds and circumstances, expressing both the individual and collective insecurities of a world in transition. Their approaches are those of ‘lesser knowing’, focusing instead on intuitive feeling to make sense of the present.