Memories of the Future
from
The Wild Within
2025
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Memories of the Future by Ryan Koopmans & Alice Wexell is part of The Wild Within, a long-term series that revitalizes relics of a bygone era by breathing new life into abandoned or historic architectural spaces.
Rooted in real-world locations, the series merges photography with three-dimensional sculpting techniques to create rebirths in the digital realm.
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This artwork is set in the now-abandoned 'Fantasy Hamam' in Baku, Azerbaijan — a lavish, theatrical bathhouse known for its ornate interiors, painted ceilings, and Romanesque columns.
Long disused and continuing to decay, the space has become a cult symbol of excess, secrecy, and the fantasies of a transitioning society.
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The hamam serves as a visual metaphor for faded luxury and the blurred lines between personal escape and public decay.
Koopmans and Wexell digitally enhance their photographs of the site with imagined, digitally sculpted vegetation, butterflies, altered lighting, and subtle interventions that suggest nature reclaiming the human-made.
Memories of the Future transforms the former bathhouse into a surreal sanctuary where past and present coexist and meanings intertwine.
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The work reflects on the cyclical nature of time, merging themes of growth, erosion, and transformation.
The infinite loop of the artwork motion creates a digital preservation of a physical world in flux, a poetic reminder of how beauty persists, even in decline.
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Many buildings featured in The Wild Within have since been destroyed or continue to deteriorate.
Through works like Memories of the Future, their memory endures, reimagined as immersive artworks that invite reflection on impermanence and cultural memory.
Memories of the Future can be shown as a motion-based video work or a static framed print.
Time-based Media:
Infinitely looping digital artwork in motion
Unrestricted size
Physical Prints:
Editions of 3 (+2 Artist Proofs)
Archival Colour Pigment Print
Three Sizes
64” x 36” inches
80” x 45” inches
90” x 50.5” inches
Beneath the Painted Sky
from
The Wild Within
2025
​
Beneath the Painted Sky by Ryan Koopmans & Alice Wexell is part of The Wild Within, a long-term series that revitalizes relics of a bygone era by breathing new life into abandoned or historic architectural spaces.
Rooted in real-world locations, the series fuses photography with three-dimensional techniques to create rebirths in the digital realm.
​
This particular work is set in the 'Palace of Shaki Khans' in Shaki, Azerbaijan, specifically in its most iconic chamber: the Hall of Receptions, also known as the Hall of Shebeke (Stained Glass Hall) or Throne Room.
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The artists chose this richly decorated space as their canvas — a room renowned for its masterful shebeke windows, intricate stained glass assembled without nails or glue, and its vivid frescoes of floral motifs, hunting scenes, and Persian-influenced miniature paintings of royal life and battle.
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The room’s ornate ceiling and walls, filled with geometric patterns and vibrant ornamentation, reflect a cultural confluence of Islamic, Persian, and Caucasian aesthetics.
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Over the past decade, Koopmans and Wexell have traveled the globe documenting architectural ruins and transitional spaces. Upon returning, they enhance these environments, incorporating digitally sculpted flora, adjusting lighting, and subtly altering architectural elements, to suggest a surreal rebirth.
Beneath the Painted Sky continues this practice, transforming the Shaki Khan Palace’s reception hall into a blooming, living space where past and present converge.
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The artwork explores the cyclical nature of time, highlighting the deep interconnection between architectural heritage and the natural world.
The lush floral overgrowth, digitally rendered with meticulous care, underscores themes of growth, decay, and renewal. The infinite looping motion of the piece creates a digital preservation of a physical world in flux.
​
Many of the buildings featured in The Wild Within have since been destroyed or continue to decay. Through works like Beneath the Painted Sky, their memory endures — transformed into immersive digital sanctuaries that invite reflection on impermanence, beauty, and the passage of time.
Beneath the Painted Sky can be shown as a motion-based video work or a static framed print.
Time-based Media:
Infinitely looping digital artwork in motion
Unrestricted size
Physical Prints:
Editions of 3 (+2 Artist Proofs)
Archival Colour Pigment Print
Three Sizes
64” x 36” inches
80” x 45” inches
90” x 50.5” inches