VIS #12 – THEME: CONTEMPORARY AR(T)CHAEOLOGY

Issue 12 of VIS presents methodologies, reinterpretations, and re-examinations of our past. Through the lens of Contemporary Ar(t)chaeology — a melding of art with aspects of archaeology — we aim to explore how artistic research can propose an alternative methodology which can challenge established historical narratives and offer the possibilities of reimagining the past. The Contemporary Ar(t)chaeology issue is an amalgamation of diverse methods and stories about history. The artistic approach gives an emancipatory possibility to challenging and bringing forward microhistories that often highlight other aspects of the known historical narratives. That diverse relationship travels from deeply personal stories to conversations with the surroundings and the questions of artistic interpretation and performativity. Explorations are not directly about the grand events or the dominant narratives; they often start with the details. These are tales that, for one reason or another, have been overshadowed, hidden in the fringes of our collective consciousness. 

Leanna Moran attempts to ar(t)chaeologically discover and understand why she paints thousands of circles. This leads her to investigate or rather interrogate her own past – the emotional journey – to understand the autoethnographic intersection between class and urban life in Northwest London. 

In her exposition, Paula Urbano touches on similar questions of social and political identity in relation to the country that she lives in. She enters a historical-archaeological journey that involves epistemological reflections on the borderland between science and art.

Ingfrid Breie Nyhus and Live Maria Roggen ask: what happens to what was once romantic music when it moves through time and history and when it moves through improvising bodies?

Marinos Koutsomichalis uses what he calls punk archeology as a methodology to get lost in the dark. His explorative, performative walks have the capacity to establish some sort of freedom, while at the same time dealing with a 'difficult' recent past.

Costanza Julia Bani, explores another potential of the artchaeological methods of engagement, and acts like a treasure hunter when she constructs a sort of cabinet of curiosities to reinterpret and rediscover nightskyes of the past.

Jehanne Paternoster conducts a microhistorical investigation in her study of the restoration of ancient tapestries. When she emerged in craftsmanship in relation to the materials, her attention moved to the threads that had fallen to the floor, and she started an upside-down study where the waste became the centre of the research.

Patrik Kretscheck has a more direct relationship with archaeological methods when he collects materials, narrations and documents from a burned school in Stockholm. His ar(t)chaeology is an indirect social and political manifest about the possible social dynamics of education in the suburb of Stockholm. 

All these expositions emphasise in one way or another the necessity of methods of investigating the past and even imagining the future. Contemporary Ar(t)chaeology may act as a healing method to deal with the difficult past, to reinterpret the past, and the dynamic relationship between past, present and future. They emphasise that the past isn't merely a static backdrop; it pulsates, intertwining with our present and forming ripples into the future. This dynamic relationship merits a sensitive method of investigation to challenge and rethink established historical narratives. Through careful, nuanced artistic exploration, they all make fragments of history reveal themselves, emerging from the shadows of conventional understanding. Though seemingly dormant, the past is teeming with life — a "dead-alive" entity that resurfaces in our present, shaping the trajectories of our futures. Thus, our approach to history should be akin to hospitality: welcoming these marginalised narratives, allowing them their rightful space in the grand fabric of time, and recognising that they, too, shape our understanding of the world.

Behzad Khosravi Noori and Magnus Bärtås, Editors of VIS #12

VIS Editorial Committee 2024: Behzad Khosravi Noori, Cecilia Roos, Eliot Moleba, Gunhild Mathea Husvik-Olaussen, Magnus Bärtås, Tale Næss, Michael Duch.

Header image from the exposition “Why I Paint Thousands of Circles” by Leanna Moran.