CITY: Oslo - Berlin
Researching, analysing and interpreting historical material, Nina Torp examines how the Western hegemonic gaze creates and communicates culture and memory. The starting point for her projects is often a cultural artefact, an art-historical subject or a cultural phenomenon. She discusses the notion of a linear, uniform and regularly flowing time – a key issue in her work is how the past extends into the present, and how it is communicated and used through the discipline of history.
She finds an interest in how art history in its chronological form seems like a logical explanation of the past. Upon closer examination however, it turns out that history too is largely based on coincidences, dreams and delusions of grandeur.An important historical reference point for several recent projects is the excavation of Pompeii after 1740 – an event that manifested in certain cultural phenomena and influenced historiography and visual representations until today.
