We Were Never Really Here is an evolving participatory photography project which explores how objects or materials in our environment cause visceral, recollection-inducing reactions, creating a perceived closeness between two distant spatial locations. These spaces can range from domestic to urban. Additionally, the project seeks to explore how and why we keep intimate objects.

The task was designed primarily as a passive one, in which participants who have relocated to the United Kingdom intuitively photograph moments that evoked feelings of previous spaces, transposing remembered space over their immediate physical surroundings.

In their multitude, the collated images endeavour to expose common themes relating to spatial memory which could create connectedness whilst illuminating the signals that tether us to the past. The collection of photographs, archives and memories depict and intimate series of contemporary life. They explore the relationship between belonging, identity, and culture.

Whilst a photograph derives from a particular moment, captured in space, it can move. Therefore, the photographs are displayed in a way which makes them kinetic. The collection of photographs is a combination of digital and disposable film. The images are exhibited in two layers, creating the impression of a transitional space in-between, where the background is stationary and the foreground is a moving, modular structure of the photos that are grouped into three spatial typologies: Urban, Domestic and Liminal space typology. This form of representation mimics an archival storage system.

The use of background and foreground creates a dynamism, allowing the images to conceal or reveal one another, creating an experience which is akin to the fortuitous surprise of recollection. We hope the website acts as a series of portals which may cause similar recollection inducing reactions to the viewer. Each participant also has an individual page, in which their photographs can be viewed on their merit.

The 2021 Venice Biennale proposed the question, How will we live together, as the global population increasingly moves, we believe it is important to find the ‘there’ and ‘then’ in the ‘here’ and ‘now’ acknowledging elements in our environment which tether us to past spaces.

We would like to thank all the participants and individuals who expressed interest in the project for their committed contribution.