Hordaland Kunstsenter

Sydneshaugen skole, auditorie A, Sydnesplassen 9, Bergen
2.30-4.30 P.M.

The exhibition Ways of Losing Oneself in an Image poses a series of questions about photographic production, as it occurs both publicly and privately. Through this twin lecture discussions of origin in relation to the photographic image will be discussed as well as how photographic collections can be read or re-actualised through artistic methods. Implicit in both lectures is a consideration of the photographic “residue”.

Elsebeth Jørgensen’s lecture has been titled The Tempo of the Archive… and will deal with how she as an artist works from within historical archives with collecting and processing of the material she comes across. Through examples from her own practice she will present how she through methods of site specificity makes spatial montages, thus creating both documentary and fictional stories. She will address how the archive is both a space and a stage for aesthetic acts, based on enthusiasm, ambivalence and dilemmas connected to the production of history, as well as the role of the individual in the construction of systems of knowledge and collective memory.

Christine Hansen’s lecture has been titled The double photograph and will take as its starting point a photograph of the two  actors Marie Bonnevie and Mikael Persbrandt shot right after a performance of the play Miss Julie by August Strindberg a few years back. The image, an ordinary news photo, produced a notion that the characters they had just portrayed on stage were still visible in their faces. This phenomena is discussed based on the theories of Roland Barthes, as well as the photographic works of August Sander and Rineke Dijkstra. The latter very often examines this phenomenon in her projects, meaning the trace of a situation prior to the moment of photographing being present in the photograph. The question arising from this is if this phenomenon is possible to trace due to the image itself or the attitude of the viewer.

The lectures are given in Dansih and Norwegian.

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Christine Hansen is researching hitory of art and photography, and has recently submitted her PhD thesis with the University of Bergen, titled A Trip through the Ordinary Norwegian Landscape. Perspectives on Photography’s Role in Contemporary Art. Hansen teaches at the Universities of Bergen and Stavanger, and the Bergen National Academy of the Arts. She is also a photographer and has published the two artist books Familiegrafier (2006) and Himmelrike (2003). She holds an MA in photography from the Bergen National Academy of the Arts (2000) and is represented in the collections of Arts Council Norway and the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.

Elsebeth Jørgensen works conceptually and site related with photography, video, sound and spatial montages emerging from long-term research projects, very often in historical archives. After her education at Royal Danish Academy (1995-2002) she has shown in several group exhibitions. Selected solo exhibitions include Cinemagic Tour at Overgaden, Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen (2005), the three part exhibition Cinemagic Tour: Scenes from an Imaginary Place, Deveron Arts, Huntly, Aberdeenshire (2005-06) and Arkivet: Cinemagic Tour & Crystal Palac, Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde (2010).

The exhibition and book is produced by Hordaland Art Centre, supported by The Picture Collection of the University of Bergen, BKH-project support from Hordaland Art Centre, Culture Point North, and Danish Art Council.

This twin lecture is supported by Hordaland County Archive, Hordaland county.

Ways of Losing Oneself in an Image – Elsebeth Jørgensen is curated by Anne Szefer Karlsen.