The project is designed to initiate new relationships and exchanges among the academic, policy, curating and artistic communities. Supported by the European Science Foundation (Humanities in the European Research Area, HERA).
Traumatic pasts have complex and often dramatic influences on the present. The conference will explore creative engagements with controversial pasts in art practice, curating and museums, establishing a dialogue among diverse participants.
Read more about our theme and aims on the project website.
'Disturbing Pasts' has published its scholarly and creative work in a special issue of the Open Arts Journal.
The conference also generated audio-visual material for the Open Arts Archive:
Margit Berner, 'Face and Death Masks in the Anthropological Collection of the Natural History Museum, Vienna';
Rafal Betlejewski, '"I Miss You, Jew!" Re-writing Polish Identity: Including Jedwabne into the Collective Narrative';
Uilleam Blacker, 'Remembering Jews and the Holocaust in Contemporary Poland: The Art of Joanna Rajkowska, Rafał Betlejewski and Yael Bartana';
Rita Duffy, 'Remember Who You Are';
Elizabeth Edwards, 'The Invisibility of History. Photography, the Colonial and the Refiguring of Nation';
Simon Faulkner, 'Reversing the Flow of Time';
Bente Geving, 'Margit Ellinor: Forgotten Images';
Clara Himmelheber, 'The Exhibition "Namibia - Germany: A Shared/Divided History. Resistance, Violence, Memory" (Cologne, Berlin 2004/2005';
Anette Hoffmann, 'Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity Conference';
Peju Layiwola, 'Making Meaning of a Fragmented Past: 1897 and the Creative Process';
Susan Legene, 'Mallaby's Car: Perspectives on an English, Dutch, Indonesian and Indian Decolonization Clash';
Erica Lehrer, 'Cur(at)ing Jewish History in Poland: Experiments Observed and Undertaken';
Sigrid Lien, 'Addressing the Landscape: Postcolonial Experiences in Contemporary Sami Art';
Heather Kemarre Shearer, 'Troubled Traces: Painting and Displaying Intercultural Traumas of Aboriginality';
Shan McAnena, 'Too Big to Fail: Remembering the Titanic in Belfast';
Wayne Modest, 'Ninety-Six Degrees in the Shade: Colouring in Absent Images';
Joanna Rajkowska, 'The Story of a Failed Attempt to Transform a Disused Smokestack in Poznan into a Minaret';
Liv Ramskjaer, 'Break! On the unpleasant, the marginal and taboo, and the invisible or controversial in Norwegian museum exhibitions';
Dierk Schmidt, 'Some Notes on the Project "The Division of the Earth - Tableaux on the Legal Synopses of the Berlin Africa Conference'";
T. Shanaathanan, 'Architecture of Memory/ Memory of Architecture: Art, Memory and Conflict in Sri Lanka';
Maria Six-Hohenbalken, 'Ambiguities of Remembering in Diaspora';
Maruska Svasek, 'Feeling (at) Home? Resonance and Transvision through Art';
John Timberlake, 'Another Country: Nuclear War as False Memory';
Carol Tulloch, 'Insert Here: Curating Difference';