An Anecdoted Archive of Exhibition Lives assembles narratives of significant personal encounters with exhibitions, resulting in an archive that speaks to and about exhibitions which—albeit not equally recognized in terms of status or importance by conventional art history—have made a difference to the thinking and working practices of those who have encountered them, both then and now. The project is a part of “Spectral Infrastructure,” a long-term project by freethought at BAK.

The project also addresses the illusion of a global arts community that promotes a rhetoric of “equality,” despite being based on circulation, exposure, and rising market values. An Anecdoted Archive of Exhibition Lives attempts to offer a “counter-cartography” of arts communities that are not dependent on markets and globalizing incentives. The project tracks how exhibitions become ongoing encounters, with some of the interviewees speaking toward the rewriting of public spaces, the perpetual value of research, their family relations, and an increasing awareness of their bodies. The project’s effort at a counter cartography is in fact an effort to de-center, de-canonize, and propose another system of value for their appreciation, as well as another set of potential locations for their appearance.

At the launch, freethought members Irit Rogoff and Nora Sternfeld invite artist Larry Achiampong and curator and researcher Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock to speak about their work. Achiampong introduces his fictioning filmic essays Relic 1 (2017) and Relic 2 (2019) that propose how shifts in balance between world powers are rooted not in might, but in the textures of memory, imagination, and landscape. Balatbat-Helbock introduces her work as part of the Colonial Neighbours project at Savvy Contemporary, Berlin that deals with German colonial histories and their ongoing effects, which, in so doing, builds an archive that is not stable and peaceful, but agitated by “toxic objects.”

As a culminating note, the contributors engage in a conversation on the next strand of the research itinerary “Spectral Infrastructure,” titled “The Unarchivable.” Developed over the coming year as part of freethought’s long-term project on “Spectral Infrastructure” at BAK, this research centers on that which haunts the archive, by what means is such a haunt authorized, and how might this work change not only the archive’s content, but the very concept of the archive itself.

15.00–15.55 hrs
Introduction by Irit Rogoff and Nora Sternfeld of freethought collective

15.55–16.35 hrs
Presentation Larry Achiampong, followed by a conversation with Irit Rogoff

16.35–17.15 hrs
Presentation by Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock, followed by a conversation with Nora Sternfeld

17.15–17.30 hrs
Break

17.30–18.30 hrs
Panel discussion and Q&A

(All times are Central European Summer Time [CEST])
The program can be followed both in person at BAK and online. If you are joining us in person at BAK, please note it is required to show a “Coronatoegangsbewijs” (Corona entry pass) at the door.