Looking Back to go Forward
2022
‘Looking back to go forward’ Recycled plywood, metal, acrylic. 2022. 40 x 30 x 6 cm. Manufactured by CNC Miling Tallinn. Metal plates - Tõnis Luik (blacksmith).
The British Rail double arrow was designed by Gerry Barney in 1965, at a moment when the nationalised railway was reaching for a modern identity. Two interlocking arrows across parallel lines: a symbol of public infrastructure, of movement, of a particular postwar confidence in collective provision. It has appeared on every railway station in Britain since, so familiar as to have become part of the visual fabric of the country.
The postwar settlement the sign belongs to is itself a lost future: a social democratic horizon anticipated, partially built, and then dismantled. Brexit recruited the same period as a lost past to be recovered, projecting it forward as the basis for a new national vision. This is what Zygmunt Bauman termed retrotopia, and it shares its structure with Derrida’s hauntology: both treat the present as a site where something gone will not recede.
The double arrow symbol is a trademark of the Secretary of State for Transport, 2011. Its reproduction in this work constitutes fair dealing for the purposes of criticism and review under Section 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Recycled plywood, metal, acrylic. 40 x 30 x 6 cm. CNC milling: Tallinn. Metalwork: Tõnis Luik.