R e t u r n explores questions of longing, belonging and fragmented memory after experiences of loss, displacement and dislocation. Bringing together international artists, the exhibition traces what violence, colonialism and war leave behind: gaps in archives, suppressed histories and memories that continue to live in bodies, landscapes and communities. But r e t u r n does not only ask what has been lost. The works imagine new connections – to people, places and histories, to the environment and to possible futures. Memory and imagination open up new possibilities.
At the same time, looking back remains contradictory. Nostalgia can offer comfort and create a sense of belonging, but it can also idealise the past, reinforce exclusion and feed the idea that it is possible to return to something that may never have existed as we imagine it.
At a time marked by war and displacement, climate crisis and the resurgence of nationalist and far-right movements, the question of what return can mean today takes on a new urgency.