Memory Palimpsests: Creative Approaches to Memory
MSA Conference, Newcastle, July 2023, Curated by Rebecca Harris and Sarah Dornof
Thinking of palimpsests in relation to extraction and sustainability, invisibility and silences, embodiment and affect, speculation and divergent futurisms. Inspired by Andreas Huyssen’s notion of “memory palimpsests and their multi-directional layerings”, and in response to the conference theme ‘Communities and Change’, this presentation of works attempts to critically examine how art contributes to the development of memory studies through a layering of prism.
The artworks will be presented on screens throughout the conference. Please join us on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday lunchtime for a series of conversations in response to the artwork with the artists and members of the Memory and Arts working group.
Artists and Artworks:
Sława Harasymowicz, Field, videowork, 5’515, 2023; Mirta Kupferminc, The Name and the Number, videowork, 8.06, 2010; Marrakech-Berlin Group (Weaving/Mining, An Archive of Promise, organized by Sarah Dornhof): With contributions by: Safaa Bendhiba, Amine Lahrach, Jamila Moroder, Abdelhamid Belahmidi, Khadija El Abyad, Diyae Bourhim, Jeanne-Ange Wagne, Lisa Ness; Domingo Martinez, Remnants, videowork, 4.56, 2017; Katya Oicherman, I wish I could, 2.00, 2019 and Oh my dear one, 7.00, 2011, videoworks; Mischa Twitchin, “Do we still remember?” that include The Children’s Emperor and The Pianist, 14.00, 2015, and The Warsaw Ghetto, 13.00, 2023, and The Warsaw Ghetto, 13mins, 2023 (videoworks).
“Lunch and Talk” sessions: 12:30-13:30
Tuesday 4th July 2023: ‘Weaving/Mining, or an Archive of Promise’: The Marrakech-Berlin group will present a collective work developed through the method of ‘cadavre exquis’ (exquisite corpse) by which individual contributions are assembled to form a collective composition.
Thursday 6th July 2023: “Invisibility, Embodiment and Patterns of Memory”, A discussion on Oicherman’s I wish I could, 2019, Oh my dear one, 2011 and Twitchin’s “Do we still remember?,” led by Rebecca Harris.
Friday 7th July 2023: “Contemporary Memory/Memorial as Hauntology”, A discussion on Kupferminc’s The Name and the Number, Martinez’s Remnants, and Sława Harasymowicz’s Field. Discussion led by Ksenija Krapivina.