April 2 2014
Academic session accompanying the exhibition Memory. Registers and territory

In recent sociological and cultural research, the question of the crisis of memory is raised, which from its boom and spectacular growth has become dangerously out of control. In so far as the problem of collective memory, particularly the collective memory following mass destruction, is willingly analysed in the context of critical arts and post-memory, issues of individual memory occupy a much more modest place in the literary analysis of contemporary art.

In an artist’s works, the artist’s own, personal memory depends on social norms and structures, while simultaneously is the source of the artist’s imagination, expression and creativity. In turn, a piece of art rooted in the collective imagination affects, enriches and creates collective memory and its new schemas.
During this academic session, we wish to consider the following questions: How is this complicated interaction between different dimensions of memory manifested in the work of contemporary artists? What kind of form do these take? What governs their mechanisms and rules? How does biographical memory manifest itself in art and is constituted as an artwork?

Please direct further enquiries to: riha-journal[at]mck.krakow.pl.