THE FUTURE OF NOSTALGIA – a magazine that seeks to reimagine, reclaim, remap future

potentialities of ideas that are shaping contemporary society

- Nostalgia manifests socially, culturally, politically – lyrically wistfulness and melancholic mourning

- does not make one a prisoner of history but a self-reflective being aware of the complexities of the
past and the posibilities of the future

- reactionary energies that confiscated it

-repurposed as a valuable conceptual tool of moving forward

We, as the children of post-communism born into the ruins of capitalism, have the necessary
repertoire to provide what Bulgarian historian Maria Todorova calls ‘an activist critique of the
present, using the past as a mirror’. The nostalgia we develop tries to move beyond idealising past
times and lost spaces, and puts forward an act of resistance against the very present in which we are
living. Our nostalgia is a reaction to the ruins of the here and now, and is built upon a critical
utopianism throuch which better futures are imagined.

- The ruins of the present invariably lead to a critique of the past

THE FUTURE OF GHOSTS – Longing for ghosts is a symptom of discontent with modern society, an
indication that the present has become ungraspable and the future sterile.

-Our interest in ghosts is not a fringe eccentricity that signifies backwardness or sheer fascination
with the obscure, but a consequential condition of our times

- This spectral figure of the ghost is, in fact, fed by our constant craving for change, by a nostalgia for
a certain something. This certain something may not exist yet, but it can be imagined and then
shaped. The ghost is our guide through (im)possible terrains in the making, our reminder that
contemplating the unknown, the unpredictable, the unseen is not some sort of heresy

- Spectres carry ambivalent baggage and, yet, might still present untapped revolutionary and
emancipatory potential

- Some of us negate ghosts some shut them awy and deny history, while others cling to them
pathologically

-Jacques Derrida – to grant them the right to a hospitable memory out of a concern for justice –
honour their existence

I am particulary interested in this topic because I have been aware for a vast period of time, starting
from my early teens, that I have an acute taste for the past (with a predilection for the recent past)
and everything that correlates to it. From the material components, varying from a wide range of
victims of desuetude, such as: dusty trinkets, all types of written media, jewelry, items of clothing,
art objects or interior objects, music records, postcards (preferably signed), tools, to the ideational
components: art in its all forms and their corresponding movements, social and political movements,
the course of concepts which continue to govern our current political and social realities, family
stories, unwritten media, recorded footage, symbols and many more. I have been and continue to be
attracted to even the most unwelcoming flea markets and also scolded by my mom for trying to
keep objects with no apparent use. All of the above are fascinating to me because they are proof of
what existed before my apparition into this world, as human creations. The past also serves as a tool
to better understand my surroundings and my reality through what used to be and, sometimes, it
takes on more trivial meanings, such as fun stuff which are fun exactly because of their forgotten
(through which we understand neglected), antiquated and disregarded character.

This paper aims to incorporate a multidisciplinary method of looking at the past and demonstrate its
and nostalgia’s potential as valuable conceptual tools in shaping our future, while also serving as a
method to self-reflect on my liking of it. Furthermore, these specific concepts will be tackled

-post-medical era, a state of mind – the by-product of cultural displacement and forces of change
that are storming our realities – the result of ALIENATION DEPRESSION AND DISGRUNTLEMENT
WITH THE PRESENT

- discontent under capitalism = inevitable – it will exist as long as... => WE ARE BOUND TO BE
NOSTALGIC => RECLAIM IT AS A FORM OF POLITICAL EMANCIPATION to build something out of the
residue we are given

Portugal –saudade France – malaise Germany – sehnsucht Romania – dor

- I long, therefore I am – Boym

- Nostalgia is not unitary, variety because of geographical, cultural, historical factors

- We are all migrants

- lost futures that never materialised – hauntology

- nostalgia – a tool through which we can explore the possibilities and realms as alternatives to the
ever so changing but ever so static present and future

-romantic reverberations

-retrofuturism and how the future is dead

- careful with the glorifying, it can get blurry, impede your thinking (you need to restrain and not let
it get to your whole retina for it is dangerous – it erases tragedies), it blurs out ‘sites of destruction’
and lost histories, it should encourage action, not getting stuck in a state reverie

- ‘Nostalgia...can act as a catalyst: thinking ahead may hurt right now, but looking back to a less
cynical era can fuel the kind of daydreaming that leads to action.’
- it can act as a shield in the ever so changing era, not to be confused with reactionary and
conservative forces, but to be aware of the overlooked, disregarded and abandoned narratives
as alternatives to the present and what was torn to the side by those who concentrate power,
the answer can lie exactly in what once was and had the potential to be => a call to explore
the (lost) possibilites of the future through the (multi) forms of the past (note: the past has
myriads of facets and thin layers, im talking about colonized and geographically displaced
people/families, basically the bidimensional history: colonizer vs colonized)

HISTORY IS NOT UNILATERAL – history is written by winners: oppressive forces,

colonising forces, those in power and thus this act of only portraying and representing one
singular dimension diminishes the voices of those non-winners  creating a portal of
extinguished voices, ideas, courses of action, lost opportunities, human destines, lost
histories, lost stories

-as alternatives to what the oppressive forces (single force) feed us – they feed us one singular
course that seems improbable to break

- PRODUCTIVE REVERIE, not just longing