Lecture notes
“The danger is always to trivialize important events” — forensic architecture
Reflections on challenge
This year marks 100 years since Sweden’s State Institute for Racial Biology was founded. This week on February 17 a memorial on the 100 years in the shadow of the Institute of Racial Biology will be arranged at Uppsala University. Currently there is a debate in Sweden regarding the collection held at Uppsala University containing more than 12 000 pictures, whereas around a third of them are of Sámi people.
This archive is about to be digitized, while the Sámi are fighting to get back these photographs, depicting the abuse of their ancestors. I think there is a complexity to this matter and I would like to explore it through this week’s challenge–but don’t know if it is a bit much for me and my capacity?
I have been thinking a lot about this collection and how deeply problematic it is. When I read an interview on the preservation of the collection of images, I reacted to the rhetorics by the librarian. I recognized the legitimisation of keeping them in the library in Uppsala from another interview I read in GDE710 on the British Museum’s unwillingness to repatriate the Rosetta stone. It was the same reasoning, the same arguments.
So my initial idea is to make a compass–sort of “the oppressors compass to keeping collections”–where you navigate different collections depending on theme, and the common argument for keeping them is displayed when turning the compass.
The compass directions are sort of “in the name of..” we have to keep this collection or do this list or whatever abusive system they come up with.
I will probably include
The collection from the State Institute for Racial Biology that will be under Science and History. Both measurements, examinations and the large collection of photographs from that. Measurements+examinations under Science and the collection under History.
Registration of political views exposed by Jan Guillou 1973 under Democracy.
Police registration over Romani people exposed 2013.
Research
Annual reports from the State Institute for Racial Biology from 1922 to 1923. I don’t know why but the statistics are not there in the same way for the other years? Maybe they only did the measurements and examinations the first years? And spent the rest of Herman Lundborg’s time studying them?
Deriving from the narrative of the oppressor, if we can call it that, I sketched out an amount of reasons usually verbalised as an argument for the abuse. At first I thought these arguments would be the way of navigation: “it might wake the greed in other people and if everyone wants photos of their ancestors from the collection, soon it will be empty”
The measurements and examinations done at the institute had some focus on the head and face. I thought of a visualisation of a face where the amount of men, women and children could be depicted.
Design development
I have removed some of the images from my process here from the blog as I feel they are not really free from problematic aspects.
Group crit
At the group crit I questioned if what I was doing was problematic. Am I just producing a problematic material? Ben said “what are the ethics of taking this kind of highly problematic data and aestheticising it?”
The conclusion was that I need to find some insight in this, how can I challenge the archive? Elise said that I should define what the purpose of what I am doing is. There are different ways to visualise what I am comparing. But I also feel like I am not really comparing anything? I have just…. visualised statistics?
I feel embarrassed and disappointed at myself that I was not able to see this before. I have at times felt like this is not a good path. This was a well needed crit with some very important feedback.
Resources
https://www.uu.se/nyheter/artikel/?id=17856&typ=artikel&lang=sv
https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/79433540/Ugglan_nr_04_Statlig_Rasforskning.pdf
https://www.levandehistoria.se/sites/default/files/material_file/skriftserie-4-allt-som-kan-matas-ar-inte-vetenskap.pdf
https://fof.se/artikel/2012/8/en-meningslos-sortering-av-manniskor/
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%A5nepolisens_register_%C3%B6ver_romer
https://www.minoritet.se/user/motantiziganism/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Registrering-av-romer.pdf
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/olaglig-kartlaggning-av-romer
http://www.samer.se/4308
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/sapmi/manga-personer-pa-bilderna-ar-fortfarande-namnlosa-det-ar-vidrigt
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/sapmi/vill-se-ett-samiskt-agande-av-de-rasbiologiska-bilderna