Future Pasts

This artwork featured in BorderLands (2026).

Future Pasts is the outcome of a 3-year project involving people new to the North-East which explores immigration, belonging and national identity through the living legacy of Hadrian’s Wall.

It documents a performance staged at Hadrian’s Wall in collaboration with people who have lived experience of forced displacement and of seeking asylum in the UK.

The work reflects on borders as both historical constructs and contemporary instruments of exclusion. Hadrian’s Wall is perhaps the most potent image of a border in our national landscape but it is also a reminder of historical multiculturality that counteracts the idea of rural England as a homogenous, white space.

Henna’s project underlines how this ancient frontier can be, re-viewed as a site of integration, a transnational site of connection. Future Pasts invites reflection on continuity, resistance, and the enduring violence of borders—past and present.

Image: Henna Asikainen, Future Pasts, Film, BorderLands, 2026. Image courtesy of the artist.

 

About the artist

Henna Asikainen

Henna Asikainen exhibited in BorderLands (15 May – 31 August 2026).