The Orchard of Vanishing Times, 2025

In ancient Egypt, time and seasons were measured by observing the sun and stars. By tracking the moment when Sirius, the brightest star in Canis Major, rose before dawn, the Egyptians could predict the timing of the Nile’s floods. This observation led to the discovery of the solar year’s length. Centuries later, the Julian calendar was introduced under Julius Caesar. Meanwhile, the lunar calendar, based on the moon’s phases, had already been developed in Mesopotamia. Although globalization has established the Gregorian calendar as the international standard, regional and religious calendars remain in use for rituals and seasonal festivals.

In The Orchard of Vanishing Times, we contemplate vanished calendars and lost time through images from ancient eras, generated with the help of AI following a meticulous prompting process developed after the artist conceived their own calendrical system.

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