Nora Sternfeld
The Object-Effect In the first part Nora Sternfeld will address the “object-effect” in museums – with the help of Derrida’s reading of Marx she will think about the magical effects of devalorization and revalorization that make “things” so appealing. What if we admire and desire objects because they carry within themselves the histories of conflict and violence: histories of exploitation (in the case of commodities) and histories of artistic challenges, revolutions, colonial violence, dispossession and pillaging (in the case of museal objects)? If the power of desire and the agency of things, is integral to their attractiveness and that of their encountering within the museum, Sternfeld suggests not to disavow the desire, but instead take it seriously. Insofar as the things, and us too, embody sedimented struggles, can they too be brought to light in the museum? If the museum is then a place full of petrified conflicts, how do we awaken them—and how do they awaken us—with a kiss? After this introduction, two artists taking part in the exhibition will join the discussion. Alexandra Pirici will present her research commenting on the request for restitution of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum to the Acropolis Museum, and the value of the sculptures as cultural capital. Baris Dogrusöz will describe his study of the archaeological site of Europos Dura in Syria, where burying the citadel became a resistance strategy. Finally Nora Sternfeld will talk about “The Museum of Burning Questions” – a para-museum enacted in collaboration with the artist Isa Rosenberger and the Retired Firemen of Bergen as one chapter of freethought ’s infrastructure project during Bergen Assembly 2016. Nora Sternfeld is an art educator and curator. She is part of trafo. K , an office for art, education and critical knowledge production based in Vienna, and of freethought , a platform for research, pedagogy and production working as artistic director of Bergen Assembly 2016. She is currently Professor for Curating and Mediating Art, at Aalto University in Helsinki and co-director of the ecm – educating/ curating/managing – Masterprogramme for exhibition theory and practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna .