Power & Paper

To compliment the exhibition “Power & Paper” we are running a  seminar program titled “Contemporary Photography, Archives and Documented History”. Due to Covid-19 the seminar will be held partly online and partly live in Bodø in the autumn of 2021. Dates and names of speakers will be announced in the spring of 2021. 

Artists and art theorists from Europe and Norway have been invited to discuss their own practices and experiences around the use of photographic archives to contextualise the program. The theme is concentrated around issues of photography, official/documented history, individual relationships with memory and history, concepts of manipulation, authenticity and authorship.

Key Questions:

• Does the artist’s inherent desire to aestheticise, help to engage the audience in existing or newly created archives in order to stimulate discussion?
• By freeing archived photography and documents from their set and regular interpretations, can artists bring new perspectives to documented history, scientific discoveries and ideologies in society?
• How can artists use their unique approaches to interpreting visual documentation, to de-construct public and institutional archive material and convey this to the audience?
• How does artists reflect upon how different aspects of an archive have an impact on the people experiencing the archival material?
• Does creation, reinterpretation and reappropriation of an archive give power to the artist to change existing understandings of events, scientific discoveries and ideologies in society?