Open Call Application
2025 Exhibition
Palimpsest of Memory
OPENS: START DATE | DEADLINE: END DATE
“Palimpsest of Memory” tells the stories of times past that have evaporated yet still linger in our minds and hearts. It is an exhibition that stresses memory as a process, a residue, a reconstruction. Through acts of layering, erasing, obscuring, and revealing, memory is not treated as a singular narrative, but rather as a live and complex entity constantly being amended and honored in both subtle and profound ways.
Just as cultural provenance traces the origin and journey of objects and ideas, history moves not linearly, but in spirals, as memory revisits, reframes, or reinterprets the past. In this unfolding artistic narrative, the paintbrush becomes a powerful tool: a means of excavation and creation, capable of expressing both the pain of loss and the beauty of reminiscence.
The exhibition “Palimpsest of Memory” presents contemporary works that explore remembrance as a layered, unstable, and often rewritten terrain. Similarly to how a palimpsest reveals the faint traces of previous texts beneath new inscriptions, this exhibition considers how the past endures, visible and hidden, within the forms of contemporary art. Drawing from elements of surrealism, post-impressionism, modernism, cubism, synthetic-cubism, abstract and gestural painting, neo-expressionism, and collage and multimedia, the exhibition seeks to demonstrate the ways in which artists manipulate form, texture, and symbol to excavate personal and collective memory.
In an era defined by loss, rapid transformations, and frivolous over-documentation, this exhibition identifies the methods in which artists engage with the echoes of history, legacy, culture, and identity in meaningful ways. In many respects, “Palimpsest of Memory” acts as an index of what remains, featuring the archived, the half-remembered or nearly forgotten, and serving as an emotional archaeological record.
Submission deadline: END DATE
Type: OPEN CALL for all
Eligibility: International
Categories: Studio Art, Fine Art, Photography, Mixed Media, Written, Video and Multi Media, Open Theme
Exhibition Director: Abi Bruno
About Abi:
Abi Bruno is an Associate Curator with a BA Studio Arts and Technology from Purdue University. She has helped curate exhibitions such as A Moment in Which We Want to Linger and Retro Fusion: Nostalgia Reimagined, exploring themes of memory, surrealism, and abstraction. With a strong foundation in art history, she is particularly interested in how historical influences intersect with modern technologies and contemporary artistic practices. Drawing on her artistic practice as an abstract painter and her academic experience, Abi’s curatorial work seeks to foster a deeper engagement with the evolving landscape of contemporary art.