Human beings travel through time: past, present and future. Whereas the future is linked to plans and unknown or rather predictable events, the past corresponds to what we, as a community, have been through. The past is clearly rooted in our present because we learn from it. It reflects our experience of life. On top of that history is taught at school from an early age as a sign of respect for our ancestors and it is an answer to our sense of belonging.
The past is often celebrated thanks to ceremonies or the creation of museums and memorials that are intended to inspire present and future generations. Indeed these monuments provide a permanent place of reflection and celebration. Moreover they act as a symbolic link to the past and a permanent reminder of shared history. Indeed some monuments are timeless and allow us to travel through history and perceive the present at the same time. The past is omnipresent around us.
Yet some of these monuments, like statues for instance, have been pulled down recently in the USA, following George Floyd’s killing, because they represented oppressive figures of the past and people want to feel represented by the monuments around them. Nowadays works of art are meant to raise questions about who we are, as a community, and who we give public space to and why. This can be seen as an attempt to oppose traditions and contest how history is taught.
Sometimes the past is celebrated as a flirt with nostalgia because it may be difficult to face uncertainties of the future. People enjoy kitschy decoration or clothing, they like visiting theme parks and dressing up like their ancestors, it helps them in their search for self-identity. Novelists love writing about the past, for Hugo Hamilton it is called « Home », he wrote: « Home is the only word I have for where I want to go back to, what I remember, and you can only remember what is gone, what is far away. » As for Graham Swift, he uses ghosts to reveal past traumas as an attempt to deal with the present.
