June / July 2025

Material Futures

“Art offers a language that transcends noise. It is a tool of resistance and reflection – evoking questions, generating conversation and making space for dialogue where there is division. In times of uncertainty, art is our anchor. It is an invitation to imagine something else, something better. After all, artists are barometers for change. They visualise the shifting undercurrents of our times, making visible what is often hidden. Their work challenges apathy, reignites empathy and fuels collective imagination. Right now, we need art more than ever – to witness our current moment, and move through it with intention.

Inside this issue we speak to artists reflecting and reimagining the world through experimentation, storytelling and site-specific interventions. Felicity Hammond’s Variations, which is touring the UK, reflects on contemporary forms of image-making, and the politics of surveillance, extraction and exploitation wrapped up with generative AI. Squidsoup, a collective working at the intersection of technology and experience, transforms data into emotive spatial installations. They will appear in Future Tense – a major exhibition I have curated to open alongside the Aesthetica Art Prize this autumn. Amsterdam’s Nxt Museum presents Still Processing, which is a show that navigates the overflow of digital media and our relationship to it. It’s a timely reminder that human perception is malleable, and that art can slow time.

Photographers inside this issue include Alexej Sachov, Anne Mason-Hoerter, Chou Ching-Hui, Diane Hemingway, Fares Micue and Reuben Wu. They are contemporary practitioners who are moving beyond representation; interrogating the frame, unpacking authorship and insisting on new narratives. These artists are responding to ecology, identity, surveillance and truth, often collapsing fiction and reality in the process. We end with Last Words from Marin Sarvé-Tarr, Assistant Curator of the SFMOMA Ruth Asawa show. The thoughtful presentation of Asawa’s intricate wire sculptures underscores her enduring legacy.”