An exhibition of outdoor artworks by MA Contemporary Art Practice students at the Royal College of Art.
Future Archaeologies offers a novel perspective on redefining our relationship with time, place, and memory by exploring the intersections of our past, present, and future. Collectively, they fuse nostalgia with futuristic visions, drawing on disciplines such as history, archaeology, science, and speculative fiction.
The arrangement of sculptural and interactive artworks, set within the verdant spaces of Camden Art Centre’s garden, builds on philosopher Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious. It proposes a new dimension where future archaeology could occur that harnesses the potential of speculative fiction, reflecting on Luis Borges’s notion that ‘the present is the instant in which the future crumbles into the past’. The presentation of these future relics within the natural environs of the Camden Art Centre garden engages with the elements, embodying ephemerality and chance.
Designed to reshape audiences’ psychogeographical connection with the site, the artworks prompt reflections on what future archaeologists might discover about past civilisations in 1000 years and how these relics encapsulate the origins and aspirations of society today. By examining themes of loss, impermanence, and fragility, the artworks seek to question contemporary definitions of humankind.