Archive of Experiences

Archive of Experiences
Museum am Rothenbaum—Kulturen und Künste der Welt
Rothenbaumchaussee 64, 20148 Hamburg
20.5. – 16.10.2022
markk-hamburg.de

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The focus of Archive of Experiences at the MARKK is a photo album from 1868 linked to the city of Singapore and a Hamburg merchant family. The exhibition addresses the multivalent memories and contested meanings of such a once-private assemblage of images that is now part of the MARKK photography collection. The visual encounter of the subjects, the materiality, and the means of distribution together resonate with currency as the curatorial prompt of the 8th Triennial of Photography Hamburg.

The exhibition features visually compelling images depicting people, landscapes, and architecture related to Singapore and Southeast Asia from the first decades of photography. Premised on the notion of the museum as a place with potential to open up new frames of reference in which photographs can interrupt dominant narratives, the exhibition seeks to reclaim perceptions that have been formed through the consumption of photographs, specifically in scenarios in which photographs have been used as tools to register and fix identities, and to accumulate knowledge—and therefore power over others.

Photographs often appear to be records of past moments, events, and memories. With materials spanning different geopolitical regions and social backgrounds from all over the world, the photo archive becomes a fountain of intersecting histories. As an attempt to challenge these patterns of value formation and inscription, MARKK in Motion Artist in Residence Kelvin Haizel engages with the photo album to create corresponding artworks for the exhibition.

Curated by Martha Kazungu, Gabriel Schimmeroth.

markk-hamburg.de