Past Events

This free event is part of the public programing related to our current exhibition Berman Board, a group project with Fiona Connor, Neil Doshi, Michala Paludan, and Gala Porras-Kim. For this 4-part event, the group will read a selection of texts on the subject of collecting and restitution, with ten of the eleven objects on hand as a case study for concrete discussion. Among other things, participants will consider extracts from the 2018 Restitution Report, theoretical texts, poems, and fiction. Each of the four sessions will be centered around a 1 1/2 hour-long close reading followed by conversation. Paludan will facilitate the sessions and other board members will join when available.

About this Project
The Berman Board formed in 2017 as a collaborative think-tank to consider the future of eleven objects, gifted to Connor, that originated from regions and cultures across Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America. Connor formed the board by inviting Doshi, Paludan, and Porras-Kim—whose practices test institutional customs of collection and display—to explore the meanings conferred upon cultural objects through architecture, images, and signs. The project contemplates what it means to trace the hidden travels and worlds of objects and artifacts, considers the ways in which they hold histories of colonial violence, and through this exhaustive process figures out what a conscientious and fair form of caretaking could be. How can we shift the ways in which we understand institutional collections and the language surrounding them, as well as the narratives associated with objects by means of exhibition context and design?

Image: Michala Paludan, excerpt from Periodicals (Ugebladet for Møn, Sydsjællands Tidende), 2019.