Forgotten/ volume 128

There are things that disappear without ever truly leaving us. A face fades from memory, a familiar place changes beyond recognition, a story is lost between generations, and an object once treasured becomes an anonymous presence in a forgotten corner. Time moves forward, carrying people, places, and experiences into the distance, yet something of them remains—sometimes as a fragment, sometimes as a sensation, sometimes as an image we cannot fully explain. The forgotten exists in this delicate space between presence and absence, where what has been lost continues to shape what remains.

To forget is often understood as an inevitable part of being human. Memory is selective, imperfect, and constantly changing. We preserve certain moments while allowing others to dissolve, keeping what feels essential and releasing what seems distant. Yet forgetting is not always a passive process. Some things are forgotten because they are considered unimportant; others disappear because they are inconvenient, uncomfortable, or no longer fit the stories we tell ourselves. There are memories we choose to leave behind and histories that are deliberately pushed into silence. Between personal recollection and collective memory lies a complex landscape of things remembered, things erased, and things waiting to be rediscovered.

Art has always possessed a remarkable ability to enter this landscape. It can bring attention to what has been overlooked, give form to what can no longer be seen, and create a space for voices that might otherwise remain unheard. Through painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, and other artistic practices, the forgotten becomes visible again—not necessarily as a complete reconstruction of the past, but as an interpretation shaped by emotion, imagination, and contemporary experience. Art does not promise to restore everything that has disappeared. Instead, it asks us to look more carefully at what is still here.

A weathered wall may hold the traces of generations. An abandoned building may preserve the atmosphere of lives once lived within it. An old photograph may offer only a partial account of a moment, leaving unanswered questions about the people who inhabit its frame. Even an ordinary object, separated from its original purpose, can become a vessel of memory. Its worn surface, altered form, or unexpected presence may reveal more about time and human experience than an object preserved in perfect condition. What appears insignificant at first glance can become meaningful through attention.

Perhaps the forgotten is not defined by the absence of memory, but by the absence of attention. We pass familiar streets without noticing their changing character. We overlook the quiet labour behind everyday life, the traditions that survive in private spaces, and the individual experiences hidden beneath official narratives. We become accustomed to what surrounds us, and familiarity gradually makes it invisible. Art interrupts this process. It encourages us to pause, reconsider, and recognise significance in places where we might not have thought to search.

For artists, the act of looking back is rarely a simple return to the past. Memory is not a fixed archive that can be opened and read without alteration. It is reconstructed through the present, influenced by distance, emotion, imagination, and the passage of time. A remembered childhood may differ from the childhood that actually existed. A place revisited after many years may seem smaller, quieter, or entirely unfamiliar. What we remember is inseparable from who we have become. Through this uncertainty, artistic expression creates new relationships between past and present, allowing fragments of experience to acquire meanings that were previously unseen.

The forgotten also carries a collective dimension. Across cultures and generations, communities inherit stories, rituals, symbols, and ways of living that shape their understanding of identity. Some are carefully preserved; others gradually disappear as languages change, landscapes are transformed, and social structures evolve. The loss of a tradition may seem inevitable in a rapidly changing world, yet every disappearance raises a question: what do we lose when we stop paying attention to the knowledge carried by those who came before us? Contemporary art can become a meeting point between inheritance and reinvention, acknowledging the past without treating it as something that must remain unchanged.

There is, however, a difference between remembering and romanticising. The past is not always comforting, nor should everything that has disappeared necessarily be restored. Forgotten histories may contain conflict, injustice, grief, and difficult truths. To bring them into view is not simply to celebrate what was, but to reconsider how it shaped the present. Art can create room for this complexity, resisting easy conclusions and allowing contradictory experiences to exist alongside one another. Sometimes, the most meaningful act of remembrance is not to provide an answer, but to make space for a question that has remained unspoken.

Equally compelling is the relationship between forgetting and transformation. Not everything lost must be recovered in its original form. A memory may become an abstraction; a familiar image may dissolve into colour, texture, or gesture; an inherited symbol may be reimagined through contemporary materials. In these transformations, the past does not disappear entirely. It becomes part of something new. The artist works not only with what remains, but also with the gaps, uncertainties, and silences surrounding it. Absence itself becomes a material—something that can be explored, questioned, and given expression.

The forgotten may also refer to those parts of ourselves that have been neglected. Beneath the identities we construct for the world, there are abandoned ambitions, unacknowledged emotions, and versions of ourselves that no longer have a place in our everyday lives. Creativity can offer a way of approaching these hidden territories without demanding that they be fully explained. An image, a gesture, or a form may express something that language cannot adequately contain. Through the act of making, what was distant can become accessible, if only for a moment.

In this sense, art does not merely preserve memory; it changes our relationship with it. It reminds us that remembering is an active process, one that requires curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to look beyond the obvious. The artist becomes both observer and interpreter, gathering fragments from the visible world and the inner landscape, bringing them together in forms that invite others to participate in the act of discovery. Each viewer, in turn, encounters the work through a different collection of memories, associations, and experiences. What is forgotten by one person may be deeply familiar to another.

What is forgotten does not always ask to be recovered. Sometimes it asks only to be acknowledged. In bringing these fragments into view, art creates a temporary meeting place between absence and presence, silence and expression, loss and possibility. It allows us to encounter what time has obscured and to recognise that even the most fragile traces can carry profound significance.

Because perhaps nothing disappears completely while it continues to influence the way we see the world. A memory may fade, a place may change, and a voice may fall silent, yet their impressions remain woven into our individual and collective consciousness. The forgotten lives in these traces—in the spaces between images, in the textures of things that have endured, and in the stories that return when we least expect them.

To remember, then, is not simply to look backward. It is to become more attentive to the present, more conscious of what we inherit, and more responsible for what we choose to carry forward. And sometimes, through the language of art, what has been forgotten finds a new way to speak.