NorEng

Public Lecture

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Midway Evaluation Espen Johansen – in search of the immaterial monument

Date, time and place:
04.11.2024, zoom

Link to public presentation on zoom

10:00 – 10:05 Head of institute wishes everyone welcome to the public Zoom meeting
10:05 – 10:50 Public presentation by candidate
10:50 – 11:05 Questions from audience

The committee that will assess Espen's PhD project consists of head of department Katrine Hjelde (committee head), research leader Frans Jacobi and Lisa Rosendahl (external member).

PhD fellow Espen Johansen presents his ongoing PhD project, “in search of the immaterial monument” for his midway evaluation

With the notion of the monument as a conceptual point of departure, I wish to analyze the public sphere as a field of political, public, and commercial interests through research, curatorial projects and social platforms. Against the backdrop of historical monuments and public art, I question the potency of contemporary art as communication in todays mediatized society, and whether art can serve as a catalyst for nuanced debate in the public sphere.

In recent years political scientists have been stunned by the shortcomings of their own predictions, as surprise election-results happened in several countries. The forum for debate is no longer in town squares or city halls, not even on television or in the newspapers, but increasingly online through unedited, easily manipulated, social medias. What does the public sphere even mean in our time and which role does art have to play in civil society?

The immaterial monument is an oxymoron. But the concept it carries refers to a monument that does not refer to conquest, heroism or the nation state, but alludes to unifying concepts that acknowledge diversity, globalism, human rights and democracy. While the immaterial monument may never be found, its effects can possibly be traced.

Espen Johansen (b. 1985 in Bergen, Norway) is an art historian, curator and writer based in Tromsø. He is currently doing a PhD in Artistic Research as a curator at Tromsø Academy of Art, and holds an MA in Art History from the University of Bergen (2011), a degree in Creative Curating from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2014), and a post-master in ‘Negotiating Artistic Value: Art and Architecture in the Public Sphere’ from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (2020).

His curatorial practice stems from investigations into the potency of art as an alternative communicative device in our mediatized society, particularly focusing on art in the public space and the power structures of the public sphere; who gets to say what and how?

Previously Johansen has worked as curator for Northern Norway Art Museum, interim director for Kabuso Art Center, curator for the graduation show for Bergen Academy of Art and Design, assistant curator for Bergen Kunsthall, and project manager for Bergen Assembly. Curatorial projects include Monument. Vestlandsutstillingen's centennial edition, Sandra Vaka – Jugs, Daniel Gustav Cramer – five days, Terence Koh – sticks, stones and bones, Tora Endestad Bjørkheim, Bjørn-Henrik Lybeck, and the group show Nabolag which he curated together with Tag Team Studio, where different artists made site-specific works in the area Danmarksplass in Bergen.