I Wish You Were Here: The art of displaying a loss

OK, let it be said at once: This post is not a happy piece. It could be blamed on the season, including the beginning of Lent when mortality and vanity is the ever present narrative at least for church attendants, and when my fellow Scandinavians ask themselves and each other (between the sneezing, coughing and winter puking) why on earth they persist in living in this cold, dark and hostile part of the world. However, I will not choose that easy way out. I'd rather surrender to the fact that sometimes even my mind is grim and dull - a fact which probably explains the passion for my research topic, since it turns out to be permeated by death, loss, hopeless longing and nostalgic memories. Or, as crime novelist P D James put it in The Murder Room: 'Museums are about death'.

Skeleton on marble sign kindly reminding the bypassers in Via Giulia that they are mortal. Church of Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte, Rome.

Researcher Mark O'Neill argues that theories on death and dying are, in fact, crucial to understand the development of the museum institutions; museums, he says, respond to a need within all humans to plan for our own forthcoming death. Professor Owe Ronström elaborates on Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett when he writes (in my translation from Swedish) that

'All kinds of preservation efforts, all history recycling, all sorts of revival, presuppose and build upon disappearance and death. Remembering is a foreplay to forgetting; for the heritage industry it is not the memory but the oblivion that is central, since it is by forgotten and dead things that heritage is being produced.'

With this perspective, to which I relate in my dissertation, P D James has a point: Museums are, at least among other things, about death. So: what happens when death and oblivion become museum objects and subject to what Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett calls 'the agency of display'?

Putting things on display is an active act of will: By pointing at something as being particularly interesting, the pointer performs a strong act of power - consciously or not. Avant-garde artist Piero Manzoni made this clear in his work 'Socle du Monde'/'Base of the World' (1961), where the seemingly upside-down base is actually putting the whole world on display as a piece of art. Pretentious - or a way to make the artist in the traditional sense obsolete.

In March 2001, the two gigantic standing Buddha statues in Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan were deliberately destroyed by Taliban, an act that was condemned internationally. After this, the valley was enrolled on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Though it should be made clear that the valley in question houses many other sites of interest as heritage and memory, it is somewhat interesting that the major piece on display - the Buddhas - for obvious reasons are not there. What is on display, and heritagised, is the memory and the void left after the destruction. This display can only be possible if a strong narrative is connected to the emptiness - a narrative constructed by someone, for a reason, and probably with certain spectators or visitors in mind.

One of the Bamiyan Buddhas before destruction...

...and after.

As previously stated, museums can be a way to deal with our own mortality and the temporary nature of this present life as we know it. This interest in death and in things, places and persons long since disappeared and gone - which varies quite dramatically in a global perspective, with different notions of materiality, time and space - seems to be linked to another strong driving force: The wish to replace, re-build, to heal the wounds and fix the broken. To undo what is done, paraphrasing that annoying yet blessed little key (and very philosophically tempting: what if, in real life..? But, alas: No.) on some computer keyboards. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the voids in Bamiyan valley were no longer completely empty, since an unofficial 'restoration' of the monument had been going on for some time. UNESCO intervened and stopped the unauthorized re-building of the sculptures, and debate was high within the heritage world on restoring, replacing, creating access and understanding for visitors, and preserving what was left of the materiality for coming generations. All highly interesting questions, and with - in my opinion - many possible answers.

Another example of death and preservation could be a genre in itself: Trees, Bushes, and Other plants. One of these is standing (though almost not) very near to where I presently stay in Rome and near the Bambin' Gesù hospital, namely the so-called Tasso's Oak. This tree was, according to legend, planted by Italian 16th century poet Torquato Tasso nearby the convent where he came to die. It has since then been subject to romantic paintings and poems, and is now a shell of what must be a very dead tree, but supported by iron beams and brick walls. The image of the remains of this poor tree saddens me a little, and brings forward the aspect of musealisation as a vain attempt to challenge and conquer death. I wonder how Tasso himself, crowned poet laureate and all, would perceive this living-yet-very-dead memory in his honor..?

 Tasso's Oak in Gianocolo Hill, Rome. Or rather: What's left of it.

Continuing the trail of trees and their painful departure and death, I have just started reading a book recommended to me by a friend who understands very well my fascination for displaying voids and nurturing memories of losses. The book by Italian writer Matteo Melchiorre bears the title Requiem per un albero, 'Requiem for a tree', and tells a story - or many stories - about how the removal of a very old tree, an alberón, and the remaining void and memories affect the local North East Italian community. It is a short and beautiful book, and I look forward to immersing myself in it for a while.

The losses and voids are not always physical and visible. However, to produce memory and lasting heritage, some kind of visuality is probably needed. A great example of this, in a terrible context, is the planned national monuments over the victims of extreme-right terrorist shootings in Utøya, Norway, in 2011. 77 persons were killed in the massacre, the most part teenagers attending a political summer camp on Utøya island. The question of how to commemorate this terrible event on behalf of the nation, in a way that can serve as a remembrance for coming generations but also as a place to remember and to mourn the persons who were killed, created a vivid national debate. Finally, an international contest was organised, and Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg won the competition to design the national memorial. His concept builds upon the perpetrator's having 'left a scar on humanity', which will be illustrated and remembered by cutting a 3,5 meters wide scar in the landscape near the island where the massacre took place.

(Pictures credit to Jonas Dahlberg studio)

The memory production of this deed of horror is highly material: apart from the already mentioned slit in the landscape, the names of the victims will be engraved in the stone wall created in the process. These names will be possible to read from a spectator place, but distant enough not to be reached - near and tactile, yet far away and unreachable. I find this concept most interesting from a memory production and heritagisation point of view.

Returning to the handling of death again, yet another aspect is the urge many of us seem to have, namely to build and correct the memory of ourselves - even while we are still in business and (should be) busy living that precious life. We are encouraged, professionally as well as personally, to mind our personal brand - how are we perceived by others, what is the narrative connected to our persona? A most boring notion of a person, in my opinion, and in desperate lack of respect for human complexity. This desire to design the memory of ourselves has deep roots in our society, though. A beautiful example might be Henry Purcell's interpretation in Dido and Aeneas. When Queen Dido enters the stake in despair after her beloved Aeneas's departure for new adventures (such as founding Rome), Purcell lets her perform an act of memory production in the last grim moments when facing death:

When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create

No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.

When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create

No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.

Remember me, remember me, but ah!

Forget my fate.

Even in her last moments, the heroine Queen wishes to control not only her own end, but also the memory of her. Remember me!, she orders, but also: Forget my fate! In its shortness, a brilliant example of memory production, and of the subtle balance between memory and oblivion.

Angel of Grief, Protestant cemetery, Rome

Trying to wrap this up, I find myself thinking that another important - perhaps even crucial - ingredient in heritage production and museums is one connected to death, loss, memory and oblivion, namely: Longing. That force so desperately trying to bridge the gaps of time, space and even of death - how could memory production be possible without it? 

I cannot think of a better way to conclude all this, than with the aid of David Gilmour and Pink Floyd: I wish you were here.

Domesticating the Medusa

 

When working on a long-term creative project such as a PhD, it is fascinating (and also a little scary) to follow the winding trail of one's own thoughts: circling around shifting themes, digging deep in details that might prove useful (or not), drifting away, then drawn in towards the core of the problem again. It is a privilege, and an art to learn and - hopefully - master one day.

Recently, those untamable thoughts of mine have dwelled a lot on Domination and Domestication, and on Control and Power. And, as almost always, an image started it all... This time, it was a blessed moment in the Yerebatan Sarayi, the 6th century "underground palace" in Istanbul, perhaps better known as Justinian's water cistern. 

336 columns, water, fish and coolness: Subterranean Istanbul magic

In the early morning hours of the last day in Istanbul and the ISCH conference, I managed to see this underground kingdom of sweet water, fat fish, stone columns and historical stories and layers literally placed on top of each other. I was amazed by the beauty and the vastness, and by the ingenious idea of a subterranean lake and food supply, accessible through holes in the courtyards of the Byzantine and, later, Ottoman inhabitants in the city.

For those of you who have been there, you know that the typical signs for tourists about Things Of Importance That Must Not Be Missed were there, too - the kind of signs that, I must confess, always make me more curious about what strange and exciting things might dwell in the other direction. This time, however, the notion of Medusa and her petrifying gaze made me actually follow the signs to see the two Antique Medusa stone heads placed as column bases at the far end of the hall. This is what I saw:

Medusa's head, de-charged by not only being used as a column base but also - deliberately - turned upside down. Domination and domestication, hands-on style.

The information signs told me that the two Medusa heads dated from an earlier Classical period, that the reason for why they were used as column bases is a matter of discussion among researchers, but that everyone seem to agree that they were deliberately placed here and in this way, and probably as a way to control and domesticate them. This goes along very well with the ideas in my dissertation project, on heritagisation (in my case, of religion) as an act of control and domestication of the disturbing and dangerous. However, down there, in the cool silence below the busy city and facing the upside down faced domesticated Medusa, yet another dimension of this struggle for power and domination in historiography struck me. Medusa, being the most terrible of three mythological Gorgon sisters, and the one whose mere gaze had the power to petrify any human meeting it, could in fact be a metaphor for the heritagisation process as I perceive it: the beholder (i.e., the museum curator, the heritage bureaucrat, the historian, the tourist guide, etc) has the power - knowing it or not - to petrify living things, environments, immaterial customs etc, and turn them into well preserved heritage with a designed narrative attached to them. 

In Medusa's case, the hero Perseus outsmarted her and cut her head off, and then used it - with its' petrifying powers intact - as a weapon against his enemies before finally giving it to goddess Athena to wear it on her shield (quite a shield..!). In this way, one could say that Medusa's terrible petrification qualities not only worked as harmful, but also in a protective way, to save the hero from harm. Turning to the heritagisation parable, the most frequent arguments and debates in the heritage field are about exactly this: protection, saving, taking aside from the course of time and destruction, and for the sake of memory, humankind and eternity (a little generally put, perhaps, but still). So, using this image to think with, we are dealing with a most powerful process that functions both as a petrifying or even a lethal tool, but simultaneously as a life saver and a protection from time, aging and decay.

This for the Medusa and the petrifying gaze. But what about next layer, the urge to dominate and domesticate this strong power?

The taming of the Beast - recurrent motive in human narratives

The main field of my PhD project, the domestication of religion through heritagisation, is overflowing with motives and drastic actions to dominate and make harmless narratives and beliefs that have come (our were forced) out of fashion. In my Northern territories, the Medieval images are frequent of St. George (Sankt Göran) piercing the dragon - in various contexts representing the Danes or other enemies at the time - or the Norwegian king St. Olav (Sankt Olof), stepping firmly on his enemy's head (which in fact is the head of his heathen brother, in the shape of a half-monster).

St. Olav the Holy stepping on his heathen brother Harald. Tricky thing even for a saint, the Love thine brother...

Here in Rome the cultural layers are, as you know, many and complex - almost like one of my favorite Italian desserts, the Torta Millefoglie: 

Torta Millefoglie, 'Thousand layers' cake'. Divine.

Layer upon layer of history, materiality, narratives - but also of controlling, domesticating, silencing, triumphing, showing who is now in charge. The basilica of San Clemente, one of my favorite churches to visit in Rome, is an example of this multi-layered material history: A Mithras temple, then a Roman house where Christians met secretly, then a 4th century church, then the present Medieval basilica - all excavated and possible to visit. In this case, the perspective of domestication but also of religious and historical continuity is strongly connected to the place: the place itself is a bearer of values and permeated with spiritual charges.

The Mithraic temple below San Clemente's basilica

Returning to Istanbul, and to Hagia Sophia 6th century Cathedral-turned Mosque-turned museum (and now suggested to be turned Mosque again), the need to demonstrate new ideologies and domesticate - though not eradicate or erase - previous ones is more evident. Here, the crosses on the doors and in the mosaics have not been physically removed, but altered to become a non-religious element of decoration.

 

Altered cross on one of the entrance doors, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Altered mosaic cross, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Given the many and turbulent changes in the history of the city, mirrored in the changing regimes in Hagia Sophia (where the musealisation/heritagisation in 1934 forms an important chapter), it is interesting that so much of the previous layers are still there, and visible. The gigantic signs with Islamic verses is a dominant visual element in the interior of the building, but some Christian mosaics showing Mary and Jesus are also there and well preserved. And beneath the signs, the previous decorations can still be seen:

Cultural and religious layers, and a heritage preserving scaffolding, in Hagia Sophia

So, how to collect these meandering thoughts on domestication, death and preservation? Elaborating just a little more on the Medusa head in Istanbul, could it be that even the petrifying heritagisation process can be overruled - by something living, by a new power and regime? Continuing that line of thought, what will happen to the rapidly and globally increasing number of appointed heritage items and places and immaterial goods: are they really petrified forever, and saved from the ban of time and change, or can they be awakened again..? I have no answers to this, yet, and I hope you forgive me for letting you into this inner chamber of unfinished contemplations and unresolved problems. But please: feel free to contribute in the comment field below if you like!

For now, let's just remain another instant on this mind boggling topic, in the lucid company of Joni Mitchell and Taming the Tiger...

The Me behind the mask, or The Otherness Gaze

Who would you like to be today? New identities for sale in Venice. 

Back to blogging after long absence; an absence containing two quite wonderful séjours in Venice and its archives, going back and forth to my frozen native grounds up North a couple of times, and a lot of mostly very enjoyable hanging out with books and laptop. Having just started my fourth semester as a PhD student, I think I am starting to get some clue of how this job and the amazing (and frustrating) environment of Academia works. One of the things that are most different from my previous job in public culture administration is that I now am not only allowed, but actually expected, to use my own observations, experiences and conclusions as a starting point and a tool in my work - the Me is, despite the obvious demands on objectivity and contextualization, crucial to my work. No wonder, then, that reflections on the identity as a stranger, una forestiera, here in Italy have been occupying my mind recently. Being constantly reminded of one's otherness, of how one in fact misunderstands, misjudges and messes things up not because of bad intent but due to the fact that there are always new unwritten rules to learn (and break), and when being almost on a daily basis associated with the most famous Swedish contributions to global culture: blondes, IKEA and ABBA (no offense, Björn Borg, but I think your hay days are over...), there is little risk of forgetting the foreign perspective. (And still, nota bene, I am completely in awe over the overwhelming generosity, good will and infinite patience flowing from Italian friends, colleagues and even complete strangers here. It makes the Otherness so much more beareable.)

The merciless Eye of the Beholder

Exploring premodern Swedish travelers in Italy and their perception of Catholicism and Catholic objects, rituals and customs, I have come to reflect a lot about what John Urry calls "the tourist gaze" in his book bearing the same title. It is the gaze, in this case the gaze of a stranger or a tourist passing by, that creates and defines the traveler's image of a place and its life and inhabitants - the gaze is the instrument shaping reality. This presumption also goes for the heritagisation process at the very heart of my project: heritage production is, as defined by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and others, the result of an active decision and agenda, and is (since most often not visible to the eye) performed and perceived by the eye and the gaze - and, eventually, by legal decisions and formalities, of course.

From a theological point of view this concept of "truth lies in the eye of the beholder" gets problematic; a relic bought as an ironic souvenir still contents sacredness, and a musealised Virgin Mary can still function as a valid object of devotion for the believer. But still: The gaze, the eye, the perception.

Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching. Travelling, with all senses wide open...

I think most of us who have traveled to other places or cultures outside of our familiar habitat have experienced how the senses widen, and how even the smallest details are registered with curiosity and care. In the manuscript diaries of the Swedish premodern travelers, lengthy descriptions of price rates, distances, transport systems etc are common. Paying this much attention to practicalities, infrastructures, costs and practical how-to advice is nothing remarkable in this context, nor is it surprising that the notions of reactions and feelings are rare in the material: a travel journal was not primarily the place for sentiments and subjective remarks. However, I ask myself if this "tourist gaze" or Otherness perspective doesn't work a little like the very bad ear phones I bought on the street the other day - suddenly just a few of the instruments and very much treble, but no bass, came through in my favourite music. While sharpening some senses, while (perhaps involuntarily) seeing what we expected to see and confirming our prejudices, a wide range of sensual impressions, events and realities pass by unnoticed. As strangers, tourists, forestieri, we submit the places we visit to our "otherness gaze" as we ourselves are submitted to it by the residents of the visited place. An "othernessification" that, obviously and most importantly, goes both ways.

Venice in cold December dawn

Following the footprints of my 17th century travelers, a visit to St. Mark's or San Marco basilica in Venice is an obvious must. Here, where an abundance of highly prestigious relics are on display since centuries, it comes naturally to reflect upon the heritagisation of sacredness and its contexts. When studying the Swedish 17th century accounts of the basilica and its treasury, before re-visiting and seeing what these travelers saw (if this is ever possible), I was struck by the massive materiality in the descriptions: gold, jewels, colours, gems, holy bones - all of unmeasurable sacred or financial value, which is often noted specially. The value and the aesthetic aspects dominated the 17th century descriptions, and I (mis)took it for a lack of interest in or an intentional neglect of the sacred values depending on the Lutheran Tourist gaze. However, when faced with this rather non-sacred, musealising and highly materialized display in real life, and also learning that this material-aesthetic narrative was applied - at least - since the end of 16th century in Francesco Sansovino's guide to Venice and its monuments, Venetia, Citta nobilissima et Singolare (1581), I must take a new position. I must consider that the relics of Venice, and the display in St. Mark's basilica, have a history of musealisation and instrumentalisation that dates back to long before the Reformation - though being simultaneously used in sacred practice.

St. Mark's basilica in Venice

If musealising and heritagising, and thus creating fragments separated from their original context, can be performed in the eyes of the beholder, it can obviously also be done quite hands-on, as in the case of this icon:

Sacred matter deconstructed in the treasury of St. Mark's basilica

No matter whose gaze or what gaze, the sight of a mummified hand on display is probably more spectacular and exotic than immediately inviting to pious contemplations to today's visitors. But in 17th century, when relics had a more established position and function for Catholic viewers, and a more negative and, perhaps, political charge to Lutheran viewers - what was the gaze then, and what context was created?

The mummified and saintly hand relic of St. Mark, St. Mark's basilica

On my daily walk from my apartment in Trastevere to the Vatican or Istituto Svedese, I cruise through huge numbers of salesmen offering me umbrellas, rosaries, guided tours of the Vatican, photos of Pope Francis, and loads of items and souvenirs more or less loosely connected to the sacredness associated with the nearby sanctuary and the Eternal City as a whole. Everyone spots in an instant that I am a foreigner, and as such a potential customer. I wonder what goods and services were offered to my 17th century travelers, and what of this they actually brought home with them..? 

The mysteries of souvenir aesthetics: De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum

Dwelling on this Otherness, and the possibility of assuming another identity when in foreign land (though the 17th century young men were warned by their fathers not to dress too extravagantly and assume strange habits when abroad - this could prove dangerous when returning to Sweden and the Lutheran Orthodox standards), I have come to understand that the initial starting point for my PhD project was partly wrong, since it presumed only the Swedes looking at the Italians and their Catholicism. I have, very much thanks to generous help from Italian colleagues and friends, learned that one thing I must take into account in my work, except for the importance of The Gaze itself, is the reciprocity of this gaze: The foreigner is not only observing, s/he is also being observed, and is - wanting it or not - affecting the daily life in the visited community. Traveling gives an opportunity to, at least temporarily, becoming another - and becoming the Other - but it also subjects the visited community to Otherness. Foreignness goes both ways. 

Or, to summarise in Aretha Franklin's wise words in her 80's tune: Who's zoomin' Who?