Artistic Approaches to Obllivion
Artists: Poklong Anading (PHL), Marina Cruz (PHL), Kiri Dalena (PHL), Martin Krenn (A), RESANITA (A), Karin Pliem (A), Jeanne Silverthorne (USA), Hong Soun (KOR).
“Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing.” (Luis Buñuel)
Memories shape our lives. They can be deceptive or sweet, painful or take leave of us. Memories are personal or shared with others, creating our collective memory and shaping our culture. The FORGET-ME-NOT exhibition is devoted to the artistic reflection of remembrance, oblivion and history. Artists therefore play a special role in the construction of remembrance: They keep memories alive, pointing out the gaps of our collective memory. Communicating between cultures, epochs and generations, artists keep watch on critical examinations of the writing of history. The works of the eight artists vividly unfold how individual remembrance can become generally binding. They show the ephemeral nature of memory or examine what kind of events find its place in a common historical consciousness, and demonstrate how to deal with “the lack of space in collective memory” (Aleida Assmann).
