Photographer Éva Szombat challenges the cyclical and absurd nature of nostalgia. When she noticed a resurgence of her childhood fashion in 2017, Éva, a Budapest-based photographer, was teaching photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. She observed young students dressed like her parents from the 1980s and 1990s, passionate about objects and clothes from a time they never experienced. This sparked her project, 'Echo In Delirium', which explores the idea that everything we surround ourselves with has already been experienced, and what others treasure has been our object of use. This concept is popularized by Jean Baudrillard and Mark Fisher, who describe the present as 'eternal', never truly progressing due to a cultural fascination with nostalgia. The book showcases gorgeously glossy collections of cultural ephemera, trapped in liminal spaces that transcend time. From a wax mannequin of a flexing Arnold Schwarzenegger to kitschy murals of Mr Bean, clunky early computers, and fading tropical beach paintings, these photographs (shot on a small analogue camera) present the chokehold of the past on the present. Éva intentionally captured the red-eye effect, a visual flaw that reminded her of 'ruined images of the past'. She believes our society, hit by recent crises, finds it comforting to look back to a past when everything seemed fine. However, the book is not a completely uncritical look back. It long for a better past, acknowledging that selective memory can be deceptive, as not everything was good in the past either. The spiral spine of the book is a clever nod to the cyclical nature of our culture, representing the present as a helix of strange historical artefacts. The title, 'Echo In Delirium', refers to the Greek myth of Echo, a nymph cursed to repeat only the last words of others. During the project, Éva found that even people from her millennial age group held objects from the past in high regard, keeping their Tamagotchis, Polly Pockets, and Furbies. The exhibition, an integral part of the photobook, recreates wall patterns and custom-made picture frames that evoke the past, becoming a collage of objects that transcend the book itself. 'Echo In Delirium' presents the absurdity of the past within the present, prompting viewers to question if there will ever be a future that doesn't feed on nostalgia.
