Vier jongemannen in de kamer van Hendrik Herman van den Berg before 1894

Hendrik Herman van den Berg captured this moment with photography, a medium itself obsessed with time and memory. The image shows four young men gathered in a room, surrounded by images – a constellation of pictures and decorations covering the walls. The walls, cluttered with pictures, suggest a personal cosmos, a Mnemosyne Atlas in miniature. This act of collecting and displaying images echoes the human desire to impose order on the chaos of existence, a visual record of experiences, memories, and cultural aspirations, much like my own Atlas. Consider how, in ancient Greece, symposia were vital to share ideas, or reflect on medieval scholars cloistered in libraries, surrounded by manuscripts. These young men partake in that practice of intellectual exchange, yet updated for a modern era obsessed with documenting and preserving the fleeting moments of life. In such gatherings, the weight of tradition is both acknowledged and transformed, passed down to the next generation.