Wolfgang Tillmans “We Are Not Going Back”

Wolfgang Tillmans releases music video for new single, “We Are Not Going Back.” Edited from footage shot by Tillmans’ grandfather in New York in 1939 and West Germany in 1949, the music video reflects the artist’s call to press forward toward the future despite the temptation of nostalgia and the uncertainty of what’s to come.

“I made this song holding on to a hopeful spirit in alarming times, when in many countries around the globe civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights are being challenged and increasingly overturned. Some paint a rosy picture of the past whilst forgetting that many people simply were not free, and inequalities were rampant. When I thought about those views of the past, the chorus including ‘no turning back the clocks’ came to me, thinking in solidarity; ‘We can’t possibly want to return to those times, however nostalgic we might feel about parts of them.’” – Wolfgang Tillmans