"Apparently it is much more comforting to look back to a past when everything was fine," says Éva. "So, this book is somewhat of a self-reassuring nostalgia trip, but at the same time, it's not a completely uncritical look back at the past. We long for a better past, although this is often deceptive because we remember selectively; not everything was good back then either."
"The book's spiral spine is a clever nod to our culture's never ending cyclicality, representing the present as a helix of strange historical artefacts - the title refers to the Greek myth of Echo, a nymph who was cursed by Hera to repeat only the last words of others. During the shooting of this project, Éva found that even people from her millennial age bracket held objects from the past in high regard, keeping their Tamagotchis, Polly Pockets and Furbies."
Society has been hit by economic crisis, inflation, COVID and regional war, leaving young people struggling to imagine the future. Nostalgia offers comfort through selective memory that obscures historical flaws. A spiral spine symbolizes cultural cyclicality and frames the present as a helix of historical artefacts while invoking the myth of Echo. Millennial participants kept Tamagotchis, Polly Pockets and Furbies. An accompanying exhibition extends the project into physical space by recreating familiar wall patterns, custom frames and a collage of carpets, pinball machines and printed curtains, blending past absurdities with present domestic aesthetics and questioning whether future can survive without consuming nostalgia.
Read at Itsnicethat
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