Collection: 'How Long is Now' by Gina Soden

Past, present, and future don’t exist per se; they are all present in the mind, Now - in our current memory of past events, in our current attention to the present, and in our current expectation of what’s to come. 

Alan Burdick

At the heart of Gina Soden’s photography is an interest in abandoned structures of unique architectural character. She travels to undisclosed sites throughout Europe to explore the boundaries of beauty, decay, nostalgia and neglect. 

There is a deep paradox lying within the essence of Gina’s work. At first glance, the casual viewer might think her photographs depict the past: past dreams, past lives, past structures. In fact, Gina’s photographs really talk about the present and our perception of passing time. In her new series of works, Gina Soden pushes the viewer into a profound reflection about the meaning of time, and our understanding of the present moment — of Now. What we experience through the contemplation of her images is a sense of a time capsule, fragmented between two times and realities.  The photographs depict a past instant, a Now and a reality for someone. This past Now, however, that seems to have paused and remained still at the very moment the building was abandoned, is shown as it is now, in our present Now and hence depicts, through the decay, the link between that past and this present Now.

The viewer, once immersed in the philosophical contemplation of Soden’s works, is brought into questioning: Is Now an indivisible momentary line of pure vapour between the past and the future, or is it an instant that can be measured? And if so, how long does it last? And what lies between each instant? How does Now repeatedly stop being Now, become the past, to turn back into Now, indefinitely until the end of time? 

The works from this series are accompanied by stories told by Gina Soden describing her experience of finding these locations and their history.