A symposium taking place within a scenography, punctuated by artists’ actions
April 20–21, 2017
OCA is pleased to present “Museums on Fire,” a symposium in Oslo and subsequently in Kárášjohka* (Northern Sami for Karasjok) that will take place against a scenography specially commissioned to artist Anders Sunna, with a number of actions and interventions by artists Raven Chacon, Carola Grahn, Geir Tore Holm and Duane Linklater.
“Museums on Fire” considers the entanglement of art institutions within the colonial and modernist ideologies that created them, and asks artists, curators, academics of indigenous and non-indigenous descent to consider the spaces and processes through which indigenous artistic practices, past and present, should be addressed today. What would a non-colonial museum look, feel and sound like? Is it enough to widen the modernist art historical canon through the politics of inclusion? And is the museum per se an obsolete model for indigenous practices? Should novel constellations of thought and practice be sought to affirm and mediate the indigenous discourses of the future?
With the significant “indigenisation” of the international art world—as indigenous voices are increasingly sought after for biennials, residencies, exhibitions and art fairs—art institutions are facing the challenge of engaging meaningfully with indigenous thinking. While the problematic issues of modern institutions were denounced early on by the likes of artist Kazimir Malevič (his 1919 text On the Museum celebrated the empowering force of burning museums) today this questioning is most profoundly felt to come from current indigenous artistic practices.
Confirmed speakers in the symposium are Clementine Deliss, Carola Grahn, Geir Tore Holm, Anna Hudson, Eva Dagny Johansen, Duane Linklater, Catalina Lozano, Gerald McMaster and Anne May Olli. Artists’ interventions by Raven Chacon, Carola Grahn, with screenings of works by Geir Tore Holm and Duane Linklater. “Museums on Fire” is curated by Katya García-Antón, with Antonio Cataldo.
The detailed programme for “Museums on Fire” will be announced shortly.
The artists’s intervention by Geir Tore Holm will happen in Kárášjohka on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 and it will be held in collaboration with Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš (Sami Center for Contemporary Art) and the RiddoDuottarMuseat (Sámi Museums in Finnmark).
The scenography by Anders Sunna in Oslo will remain on public view at OCA from Wednesday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm (closed on May 17 and 24) until June 25, 2017.
For more information, please contact OCA’s Communication Manager Tara Hassel.
About “Thinking at the Edge of the World. Perspectives from the North”
The event forms part of “Thinking at the Edge of the World. Perspectives from the North,” a broad cross-disciplinary project exploring the cultural history of Northern Norway, curated by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA). Structured through a series of regional and international dialogues and partnerships, the project is unfolding in various forms and locations across Norway and beyond, including research, artists’ residencies, exhibitions, text commissions and a number of activities implemented through an OCA pilot office in Tromsø as well as its premises in Oslo.
