Symposium: (In)visible Archives

Yvette Brackman

Yvette Brackman was born in New York and has been based as an artist and a researcher in Copenhagen since 1999. Brackman holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago as well as a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Illinois in Chicago.

In her practice, Yvette Brackman explores the body’s relationship to space and memory. In the installation Moe Mir (My World in Russian), which was displayed at HEIRLOOM – Center for Art and Archives in Copenhagen during the fall of 2023, Brackman examined her relationship to her Russian-Jewish family history through video, textiles, and artifacts, including family photos and heirlooms.

Brackman’s artistic practice has gained recognition both in Denmark and internationally. Her work has been exhibited in places such as O—Overgaden, the Institute for Contemporary Art, Nikolaj Kunsthal, and the Liverpool Biennial. Between 2000 and 2007, Brackman was a professor and head of the School for Walls and Space at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, as well as a guest professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Between 2020-2024, Yvette Brackman was affiliated with Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) through a Mads Øvlisen postdoctoral fellowship in practice-based research. Her latest exhibition, Salon des Refusés, was shown at SMK in the spring and fall of 2024.

Malin Forssell

Malin Forssell has been a curator at Malmö Konstmuseum since 2010. She is responsible for the Russian art collection and the collection of applied arts and design. Her work primarily involves exhibitions and conducting research projects related to the museum's collections. With an academic background in art history and art theory, her interests and areas of expertise lie in the intersection of fine art and cultural historical material connected to various interdisciplinary practices and meanings over time.

Malin Forssell has also worked as a writer and freelance curator, including at Skånes Konstförening and Galleri Format in Malmö.

Clara Hainault

Clara Hainault has been a project coordinator at Malmö Art Museum since 2023. She holds a Master’s degree in Art History from Uppsala University, obtained in 2023, and works on exhibitions and fundraising at the museum. Currently, she is collaborating with Jacob Fabricius on the exhibition Anslagets Konst, which will open at the museum in December 2024. She has previously worked in London, including at Sotheby’s and Amanda Wilkinson Gallery.

Stine Hebert

Stine Hebert is a curator, researcher, and art historian based in Copenhagen. She has previously served as Dean of the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, Rector of the Fyn Art Academy, and Acting Director of BAC – Baltic Art Center. She has also worked as a curator at Kunsthal Charlottenborg and Malmö Art Museum, and for several years been a freelance curator focusing on investigations into the conditions of artistic production. Stine Hebert is associate professor at PASS Center for Practice-based Art Studies at University of Copenhagen.

Together with Johanne Løgstrup, Stine Hebert runs HEIRLOOM – center for art and archives in Copenhagen, an art center focused on reviving artistic practices from the 1960s onward and putting them in dialogue with the contemporary. The value of an heirloom is never straightforward, and the negotiation of what is assigned value reflects their approach to opening the archive.

Rebecka Katz Thor

Rebecka Katz Thor works as a researcher, editor, and a curator in Stockholm and at Linköping University. She earned her PhD in aesthetics from Södertörn University in 2018.

Katz Thor researches monuments and memorial work in Sweden and internationally, focusing on issues of vulnerability, mournability, and reparations. In the research project Ihågkom oss till liv – Vulnerable Memories in a Future Monument, Memorial, and Museum, she follows the development of a Swedish Holocaust Museum, a monument to Swedish colonialism, and an anti-racist monument in Malmö.

Rebecka Katz Thor has co-curated the exhibition Liv som Tyg about the artist Lenke Rothman at Malmö Konsthall, along with Runo Lagomarsino and Mats Stjernstedt.

Rebecka Katz Thor will not be present at the symposium.

Runo Lagomarsino

Runo Lagomarsino is an artist, based in Malmö. He received his master's degree from Malmö Art Academy in 2003 and studied at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York between 2007–2008. Lagomarsino works with many different means of expression, not least with installations where he combines found objects, sculpture, photography, and film. Through precise and poetic shifts, Lagomarsino creates friction between language, materiality and historiography. With his installations, sculptures, drawings and films, he portrays other ways of looking at historical, political and cultural power relations. He highlights traces and crimes from the past and the intricate ties between history and our present.

Lagomarsino has exhibited at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Malmö Art Museum, LACMA in Los Angeles, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, M HKA in Antwerp and Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, among others, and at biennials such as Venice and São Paulo.

Runo Lagomarsino, together with Rebecka Katz Thor and Mats Stjernstedt, has curated the exhibition Lenke Rothman – Life as Fabric at Malmö Konsthall.

Runo Lagomarsino will be present during the symposium.

Johanne Løgstrup

Johanne Løgstrup is based in Copenhagen as a curator, researcher, and writer. Since 2021, she has held a PhD from the Department of Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University, where she was part of the research project The Contemporary Condition. Previously, she co-founded the organization publik, led the project Space Bureau Public, and worked as a curator at Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen.

Together with Stine Hebert, Johanne Løgstrup runs HEIRLOOM – center for art and archives in Copenhagen, an art center focused on reviving artistic practices from the 1960s onward and placing them in dialogue with the contemporary. The value of an heirloom is never straightforward, and the negotiation of what is assigned value reflects their approach to opening the archive.

Alice Minter

Alice Minter has been the Senior Curator of the Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London since 2018. Previously, she worked for ten years at Sotheby’s in London as a specialist in ceramic, silver, and gold boxes. Alice Minter co-curated the groundbreaking exhibition Hidden Histories: Uncovering the Story of Nazi Looting Art in 2021 at V&A. She is currently leading a complete renovation and expansion of the Gilbert Galleries, set to open in late 2025. The Jewish heritage—manifested through objects, collectors, and artists—has played a significant role in the development of the Victoria and Albert Museum's collections.

Alice Minter is currently organizing a symposium to be held at V&A on November 27, 2024, titled The V&A and Its Jewish Heritage: Objects and Stories.

Alice Minter will participate in the symposium digitally.

Marija Petrovic

Marija Petrovic was born in Ukraine and is based in Berlin as an artist, researcher, and curator. In her work, Marija Petrovic is interested in the fragility of connections and interactions, as well as the multifaceted complexity at the intersections of historical narratives and personal experiences. Her research project and publication Silver (2023), that she co-wrote with artist and researcher Ofri Lapid, examined a collection of silver cutlery of Jewish origin currently held by the Arts and Crafts Museum in Hamburg. The silver collection consists of remnants from twenty tons of silver objects that were looted from Jewish families by the Nazi party at the beginning of World War II. For unknown reasons, approximately 2,000 kilograms were withheld by city officials and were not melted down as intended. After the war, the objects were dispersed across several institutions in the city, including the city hall, where they were likely used for official events. Eventually, the collection was transferred to the Arts and Crafts Museum in Hamburg, where a few pieces are displayed in the museum's permanent exhibition. The museum is hesitant to highlight its history, referring to a "Berührungsangst"—a fear of touch. Marija Petrovic's artistic research aims to find ways to reactivate the silver objects and reintroduce touch as an important factor in the contemplation of history, community, and memory.

Currently, Marija Petrovic is pursuing her doctoral studies at HFBK Hamburg, and her dissertation, Vulnerability, is supported by the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Scholarship Fund.

13.00 Welcome by Museum Director Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg

13.10 Clara Hainault introduces the program for the afternoon.

13.20 Malin Forssell, Unknown Chanukiah – Researching Blind Spots in the Collection

13.30 Marija Petrovic, Rethinking Material Agency

13.50 Stine Hebert and Johanne Løgstrup, An archive only has a value if you open it

14.00 Yvette Brackman in conversation with Stine Hebert and Johanne Løgstrup about their collaboration on the exhibition I'm an Archive – Moi Mir

14.20 Runo Lagomarsino, Life as an archive

14.40 Alice Minter, Concealed Histories

15.00 Break with coffee at Stureplan

Moderated discussion in two parts on method development and knowledge sharing

15.15 Yvette Brackman, Malin Forssell, Stine Hebert, Runo Lagomarsino, Johanne Løgstrup and Marija Petrovic

Moderator: Clara Hainault

15.40 Together with the audience

16.00 Thank you!

The symposium is part of the project Unknown Chanukiah – Researching Blind Spots in the Collection, which is ongoing at the Malmö Art Museum until January 2025.

The symposium is organized in collaboration with HEIRLOOM – center for arts and archives in Copenhagen. The symposium is supported by Open Malmö.

The research project is curated by Malin Forssell and was initiated in collaboration with the Jewish Museum in Stockholm in February 2023.