Anatomising the Museum – Contemporary Art & Museum Collections, Part I
Channel: HDK-Valand
Date: 2016-11-25

ANATOMISING THE MUSEUM – Contemporary Art & Museum Collections: The Medical and The Social Body, PART I

In this video: Welcome Introduction by Jason E. Bowman and Lisa Sputnes Mouwitz, followed by Opening Presentation by Miranda Stearn.

Documented by Camilla Topuntoli, on November 26, 2015
Glashuset, Valand Academy
Gothenburg, Sweden

ANATOMISING THE MUSEUM brings together international artists, curators, researchers and museum professionals to probe at the effects of interventions and incisions in museum collections by contemporary artists. Why are we encountering increased examples of museums engaging artists to work amidst or from their collections? How critical can artistic interventions in collections be when they most often occur at the invitation of the museum? What forms of critical curatorship are authored when museums engage artists to work amidst its practices? Are the procedures of the museum anatomised or consolidated through such projects? Through convergence of art-criticality and heritage-criticality this seminar investigates interpretation and intervention, critical curating and quasi-curatorial methods as effects and methods of artistic intervention in and through museums’ collections and their practices.

Each year first year students of Valand Academy’s M.F.A. Fine Art Programme conduct an investigative approach to a specific context or site resulting in public exhibition. In recent years this has included: an archeological dig (2015), a schoolhouse in a depopulated town (2014) and a stately-home (2013). These projects have been supported by EU funding, philanthropy, regional and city funding and often by the Heritage Academy and Critical Heritage Studies Department at Gothenburg University and its Student Union. This year we are delighted to be collaborating with Gothenburg’s Medical History Museum where the exhibition Helt sjukt! (Totally Sick!) opens to the public on 22 April 2016. A follow up seminar to Anatomising the Museum will take place on April 26, 2016.

With speakers: Lauren F. Adams, artist and Associate Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (USA). Dr. Sara Barnes, researcher, writer and independent curator (DE). Christine Borland, artist and BALTIC Professor at Northumbria University, Newcastle (UK). Jason E. Bowman, artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Valand Academy, Univeristy of Gothenburg (SE/UK). Mary Coble, artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art and Photography, Valand Academy, Univeristy of Gothenburg (SE). Dr. Martha Fleming, art and sciences specialist, Reading University (UK). Lisa Sputnes Mouwitz, Director of Gothenburg Medical History Museum (SE). Matty Pye, Curator Adult Programme, V&A Museum (UK). Miranda Stearn, Head of Learning, The Fitzwilliam Museum (UK).

ANATOMISING THE MUSEUM is co-organised by the MFA: Fine Art Programme, Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg and Gothenburg Medical History Museum, Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

http://akademinvaland.gu.se