No linear chronology, but a "painting rack" approach: photographs stand alone, depot-style, with Lina Bo Bardi easels from the boijmans collection as eye-catchers. Thus, it invites Memento out to wander as well as to remember - without a fixed route, with all freedom and wonder.
The collection? Rich as well as transnational. From icons such as Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Andres Serrano to newcomers such as Jamie Hawkesworth, Nhu Xuan Hua and Tyler Mitchell - photographers balancing on the edge between fashion and art.. Masterpieces from South Africa and Japan (David Goldblatt, Zanele Muholi, Naoya Hatakeyama) stand side by side with emerging names, sharing their view of people, city and nature.
Each photograph is a "memento": a quiet moment that has become story - sometimes collected because of its artistic impact, sometimes because it reflects societal shifts, from Black Lives Matter to the impact of the pandemic. By choosing not chronology but themes, such connections come in immediately: collection lines on identity, documentary photography, fashion art and activism come into their own in focus magazines.
Stepping through the centuries-old halls of Huis Marseille, the designs spotlight each snap like a jewel in a curated treasure chest.
More than an expo: Memento is interaction. In seven rooms appeared "zines" with essays or poetry, animated film projections of depositions and a choreography opening by Clarinde Wessenlink. It is a museum experience in which image, text, sound and spatiality come together in a temporary, restless rhythm - befitting the theme of "interrupted.