Future Memories, a project by Catherine Nelson begun in 2010 and revisited in 2020, transforms landscape photographs into circular, self-contained worlds, drawing on environments in Australia, the Azores, Costa Rica, Greenland, and elsewhere.
The project began after Nelson walked through a nature reserve near Ghent, Belgium, while considering Pieter Bruegel's ability to combine multiple moments within one image. Drawing on this model, she sought to represent duration, memory, and her subjective experience of place rather than a single camera-bound instant. The title links these concerns to ecological vulnerability, imagining present environments as possible memories in a climate-damaged future. Nelson returned to the theme in 2020 because she regarded deforestation, biodiversity loss, and climate change as increasingly urgent. The later work connects ecosystems at contrasting geographic and climatic extremes.
Each color composition gathers trees, water, flowers, birds, gardens, tundra plants, coastlines, and seasonal changes into a continuous spherical landscape. Central elements appear closer to the viewer, while curved horizons turn the assembled terrain into a suspended, planet-like form. Skies establish the apparent time of day and atmospheric register, surrounding densely layered interiors that may evoke tropical abundance, winter conditions, cultivated gardens, or Arctic vegetation. Photographic specificity remains visible even as shifts in scale, season, and viewpoint disclose the landscapes as constructed spaces.
Nelson developed this language through her training as a painter and thirteen years working in film visual effects. She builds extensive photographic libraries, sometimes taking as many as 15,000 images during a trip, then digitally isolates elements ranging from individual birds to entire trees. Beginning with the sky and perimeter, she works inward, adjusting hundreds or thousands of components through forced perspective. Each composite required approximately six to eight weeks of studio work. The finished editions include pigment ink-jet printing.
Future Memories was exhibited in Paris, Sydney, Melbourne, and Beijing between 2011 and 2012, with a further Sydney presentation in 2014. Galerie Paris-Beijing published a 52-page catalogue in 2011, and Cloverdowns was included in that year's Bowness Photography Prize finalist exhibition. Nelson's subsequent work on the project was presented at Michael Reid Gallery in Sydney in 2020 and Gallerysmith in Melbourne in 2021. Cartago received a Highly Commended distinction and the People's Choice Award at the 2020 Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize. Australia's Parliament House acquired Tropic and projected it on its facade during the 2022 Enlighten Festival.
