The fourth appointment of OVERTON WINDOW, the project curated by Re:humanism for Matèria, presents an installation by the Peruvian artist Nicolás Lamas, entitled Collective Memory.
The work is conceived as a timeless archaeology: the bronze cast of a Kenyanthropus platyops skull—an extinct hominid species that lived approximately 3.5 million years ago—and a wasp’s nest, a fragile remnant of a non-human collective intelligence, are fused together and placed within the structure of a server that evokes contemporary data flows, digital infrastructures, and information networks.
The project unfolds as a reflection that intertwines distant temporalities and heterogeneous cognitive models. On one side stands the “solid brain”, a stable and specialized architecture present in many living species, including humans; on the other, the “liquid brain”, a dynamic, distributed, and decentralized system characteristic of insects and certain artificial intelligence systems.
Collective Memory challenges the traditional notion of the individual mind and proposes a vision in which intelligence emerges from complex systems—biological or artificial—and persists within the entanglement of living and constantly evolving networks. It invites us to transcend dichotomies and to rethink personal and collective experience as a web of relations that brings together different ways of being in the world.
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Nicolás Lamas (Lima, 1980) works at the intersection of art, science, technology and everyday culture, combining diverse materials, life forms, technological artefacts and linguistic references. His sculptural assemblages deconstruct established views that determine the way we perceive, interpret and interact with the environment. By fusing and recontextualizing everyday fragments with historical artefacts, Lamas creates sculptures that blur temporal boundaries, appropriating archaeological aesthetics while drawing on digital technologies. He creates a dialogue between opposing forces to break down a strict division of disciplines and dissolve traditional notions of matter. Lamas creates a hierarchy-less interplay in which the relationship between the human body and other forms of matter – organic or synthetic – constitutes a recurring axis, bringing notions of agency, memory, and transformation into play.
Most relevant solo institutional exhibitions were at Cukrarna in Ljubljana, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, CCC OD in Tours, Fundació Miró in Barcelona and P/////AKT in Amsterdam.
Matèria and Re:Humanism thank max goelitz gallery for the support.
INFO
Collective Memory by Nicolás Lamas
Curated by Re:humanism
Opening: December 4, 2025 (5.30-8 pm)
Until February 1, 2026
Tue–Sat 11am–7pm
Matèria – Via dei Latini 27, Rome
contact@materiagallery.com