Nonument Group

Where and when does the future end? Nonument Group’s From Nowhere to Noplace – Pioneer Railway (2019) was a performative light and sound walk on the former tracks of the Pioneer Railway. An Open Archive of What is to Come, the closing chapter of the multi-year project, addresses the need for an archive of the Pioneer Railway, especially testimonies about the impact that the railway had on the lives of the former pioneers. The Railway museum of Slovenian railways currently holds a photo collection and media clippings of the Pioneer Railway. The Nonument Group reflects on the legacy of the railway and invites the former Pioneer Railway children, who are now 80 to 90 years old, their families and the general public to donate material and immaterial traces (testimonies, oral histories) about the railway to the archive. The sound installation at Cukrarna acts as a starting point of an open archive that will expand and hopefully become a part of the Railway museum of Slovenian railways Collection for the generations of the future. The Pioneer Railway built community and solidarity and its train symbolised a bright future. The installation at Cukrarna uses the values of this abandoned infrastructure and education project to create a temporary open archive of the future in the making.