Van Gogh in 2026 What if Vincent van Gogh could step out of his paintings and find himself in the world of 2026? The café remains, but the world around it has changed. The people, objects and small details of everyday life become a reflection of contemporary culture. Technology, modern habits and humour enter the scene, while the characteristic atmosphere and visual language of Van Gogh’s painting remain at its core. The playful anthropomorphic characters sitting around the café are part of this idea. They behave like ordinary people: drinking coffee, wearing hats and moustaches, sitting together and becoming part of the social life of the terrace. The “Semen’s” sign adds another contemporary layer to the scene, introducing a fictional modern business into a setting that originally belonged to nineteenth-century Arles. What interested me most was the contrast between Van Gogh’s way of seeing the world and the way we experience it today. In 1888, cafés were places to meet, observe, talk and spend time together. In 2026, we still gather in cafés, but our surroundings, behaviours and references have completely changed. The technology may have changed. The humour has changed. The culture has changed. But the human desire to gather, observe and experience everyday life remains. The result is a playful reinterpretation of a historical masterpiece, not an attempt to reproduce Van Gogh, but to imagine what could happen if his world suddenly collided with ours. A night that began in 1888, imagined again in 2026. Explore the full FLORA project here: https://app.flora.ai/join-project/3dea1992-09c9-4daf-b89d-fd98b83b4b77 Original work: Vincent van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night (Place du Forum), 1888. Original artwork: https://www.krollermuller.nl/en/collection/vincent-van-gogh-terrace-of-a-caf-at-night-place-du-forum-km-108-565 Created with @FLORA for the FLORA Museum Challenge.

Simona Meleca

UI/UX, Web Designer and Photo Editor