FORUM MASTER NIGHT: HELGA NYMAN
ART AND ARCHIVE: HISTORY, PLACE AND NARRATIVES IN THE PRACTICE OF ELSEBETH JØRGENSEN
In her thesis, Nyman looks at Jørgensen’s earlier works: the nomadic project Cinemagic Tour and Unofficial Deposited Records a work made in collaboration with Pia Rönicke, shown at Tate Modern from 2005 to 2010. Jørgensen’s artworks often combine photographic documentation with appropriated archive material in a montage like installation. Her works have a narrative structure, but like the montage medium, they are also fragmented. Jørgensen’s works raise questions related to the construction of history, memory and the human desire for collecting.
Starting with Jacques Derrida’s theories, Nyman investigates if and how Jørgensen’s works can be said to deconstruct traditional conceptions about the archive, and how the archive material is staged in a productive and performative way in the works. The thesis also looks at Jørgensen’s use of the photographic medium, and it’s place between the indexical and the constructed. Finally, Nyman sees Jørgensen’s re-use and re-organisation of archival material in relation to Nicolas Bourriaud’s concept of postproduction.
Jørgensen’s projects are long term studies of concrete places and archives, and informants and other contributors are actively involved in the process. Nyman will therefore discuss her works in light of a discursive tendency within a site specific tradition of art, known for expanding into culture and for using ethnographic methods.
Helga Nyman is MA student of Art History at the University of Bergen, and will finish her thesis in November. She has previously worked as a gallery host at Bergen City Museum, and currently works at Kabuso in Hardanger and BIT Teatergarasjen in Bergen. This summer she was one of the organisers behind Hørte Annualen 2011 in Telemark. While studying she has also been active in the committee for art history students, of which she was the leader in 2009/2010.
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Master Night is a series of lectures where both MA students and recently graduated art historians present their MA dissertations to a public. With Master Night Hordaland Art Centre wishes to bridge the gap between the academic and practicing art scenes in Bergen, and create a place for interaction between students and professionals.
Eva Rem Hansen is responsible for this program and Master Night is made possible due to good help from the study committee of Art History at the University of Bergen.