Material Testimony
War and disaster do not end when the visible event is over. Pollution, massacres, gender-based violence, institutional disasters, and military occupation may occur at particular moments, yet their effects remain embedded in bodies and emotions, livelihoods and landscapes, persisting in everyday life. The five artists in The stories we are still living approach disaster not as a completed event, but as an ongoing condition. Across their works, beads and textiles, Post-it notes and handwriting, clay, sensor data, and land become more than materials or tools of documentation: they act as forms of testimony. These materials preserve experiences and memories often overlooked by official histories and institutions, allowing traces of violence, mourning, resistance, and survival to surface. By following what remains in matter and place, the exhibition asks how disaster continues to shape the present, and how memory and solidarity might take form through what has been left behind.
