RE:ACT...OR?
Technological and societal shifts move at a neck-breaking pace, rendering structures, systems, and spaces obsolete. Ideas and buildings get torn down and deconstructed mere moments after their erection. What happens to the places, objects, and ideas we discard? They don’t simply vanish, they don’t melt into air, at least not their material components. These images peer into a future shaped by climate catastrophe, capturing relics of a world without humans in a chernobylesque manner. Yet, these images and places are not fiction. They document the forgotten, invisible spaces present in every city and village. Photography serves as both witness and catalyst, making the unseen visible, allowing us to see the world as it is.
This dialogue between abandonment and adaptation invites its viewers to recognize the potential of unused spaces and engage with them creatively. There is a quiet resilience within the decay. Mixed into the colour palette is a hopeful tone: the obsolete is not the end. It is the beginning of transformation. Within the constraints of what already exists, new ways of thinking, creating, and inhabiting space can emerge.
The venue itself, a former reactor hall, embodies this vision. Once a silent chamber of nuclear experimentation, it now hums with buzzing ideas and conceptual fusion. The materiality of the space becomes part of the discourse: the exhibition invites attendees to explore the site by experiencing the tension between obsolescence and renewal.
The installation took place at KTH Reactor Hall in Stockholm — Sweden’s first nuclear reactor facility. Decommissioned and dormant for decades, the hall has been reactivated not for science, but as a site for culture: hosting operas, conferences, and the art installation RE:ACT…OR?.
The work was presented as part of the 7th Nordic STS Conference.
