One Step Forward, Two Steps Back is a group exhibition, borrowing its title from a 1904 revolutionary pamphlet by Vladimir Lenin. The purpose here is not to relate to Lenin’s paper but to use its title in examining a situation where, seemingly for every attempt to make progress in a task, an actual retrograde performance is achieved. The exhibition focuses on “now”, at this very moment, the present in relation to time, future and past. What is our understanding of now? Do we live it, or deplete it by waiting for better days? What is reality and does it have to reflect upon the past in order to survive today? Are we aware and conscious of our history? Do we care about it? Could one exist without a past? What would future be?
Through performances, video, photography and installations, a group of international artists examines 'today' by reconstructing, revisiting and reinventing, not always pleasant but certainly significant moments in their lives; instants that for some reason are nothing else but the blemishes from the past, difficult to comprehend and mostly hard to forget. They may be someone else’s reality all together, yet mingled in a group consciousness that cannot escape it.
