Possessing the Past

Niamh Cullinane

Antiquities exist in many different times at once; in the workshop in which they were made by the skilled hands of long forgotten artists, in every life and time through which they have subsequently passed, variously buried beneath palaces and cities, recollected by museums, and acquired by the hands of patrons. They are carried through time and space before finding themselves in the present moment, with every pair of hands adding another layer to their history, marks fleetingly left, before continuing on their journey.

Possessing the Past explores not only the history contained within objects, but the ways in which cultures continually return to, reinterpret and renew their relationship with what has come before. Works of art not only bear evidence of history, but represent a palpable, physical manifestation of the past; their survival collapses the distance between what is and what has been. An object carries within it the circumstances of its making, but also the successive histories of its preservation, movement, ownership and interpretation, never settling, always renewed. The object becomes not simply evidence of another time, but a vessel of experience. A hand shaped, molded and made every piece, and innumerable hands have contemplated them long before ours. Through this encounter, the membrane between past and present becomes permeable, an ineffable, numinous experience that transcends scholarship, provenance or material value. To possess, to take responsibility for, something which existed long before us, and will continue to exist long after we are gone, alters not only our understanding of the past, but allows us to glimpse into the future.

This contradiction, articulated by the artist Anselm Kiefer as “only by going into the past can you go into the future,” resists the notion that tradition and history are synonymous with inertia. The objects gathered in this exhibition ask us not simply what the past can tell us, but what our encounter with the past might make possible. To return to what has preceded the present time is a means through which new possibilities are created. To understand and engage with the deep recesses of time, to feel the unseen revolutions which move and shape the world, is to make visible the potential of the future. To possess the past is not to retreat into it, nor to claim ownership over something that can never truly belong to us. It is to receive, engage with and carry forward the material traces of lives that preceded our own. To become the custodian of memory, to usher in new ways of seeing. This relationship to time allows the present moment to escape the isolation of perception, acting as a reminder that some things are larger than a span of a single life. The future is made from what we remember, preserve and pass on, and the past is not behind us, it travels with us into the future.

萬古之幽

Niamh Cullinane

古物並非僅存於單一時空，而是流轉於歷史長河的多重時空：始於高古久遠的作坊中，由早已被遺忘的匠人巧手所造；接續在代代生命與時光中遞存，或曾遺埋於華殿富邑之下，或曾為博物館再度收藏，亦或為賢主所珍愛。古物隨著時空漂泊，直至今日，每一雙遞藏的手皆為其歷史添上新層，留痕片刻，然後繼續前行。

《萬古之幽》所探尋的，不僅是各別古物所承載之歷史，更是文化如何不斷復興、再譯、更新現下與往昔的關係。藝術品不只是歷史的痕跡，更是過去時光的具體形象；它們的存續使「遠古」與「現今」的距離消融。古物既含括其製作之境，亦承其保存、流轉、收藏與詮釋之生命歷程，未曾停歇，時刻更新。物不僅是他時之證，更是乘載生命經驗之舟。每件作品皆由人手塑造，在你我之前已有無數雙手摩娑、凝視、戀慕。此刻相遇，古今之界線遂消解不存，衍成一種難以言喻、超越學術與現實的靈妙體驗。能擁有古物，承責做為古物的下一位守護者，如此親密地貼近久遠之前已存、久遠之後仍存者，不僅淬鍊我們對過去的理解，亦使我們得以一窺未來。

安塞爾姆．基弗曾言：「唯入於過去，乃能入於未來。」看似矛盾，然點破傳統與歷史並非停滯。本展中所聚之物，不僅訴說著歷史之智識，更開啟了今人與過去相遇時，所能激發的種種可能。鑑古識今，乃創新之途。若能一探舊時之幽深，體會無形之脈動推移時空，則未來亦顯矣。擁有歷史並非耽溺過去，亦非試圖佔有非己之物，而是接受、深擁並珍存那些先於我們的生命痕跡。遞藏者不僅是記憶的守護者，亦是開啟嶄新的觀世之姿。如此深刻之跨時空連結，使當下之人，不再孤立於感知之中，因為有些事物遠遠超越一生之限。未來將以今人保存與傳遞的記憶為礎石，過去並非佚逝，它與我們相依同行，邁入未來。

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