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What Material Remains?
Shared by Synnøve Marie Vik, Trond Hilmar Søbstad | Traced by Adam Jaghouar
What are the documents we leave behind? How do libraries and archives collect, organise and turn them into knowledge? What makes us aware of the stories that are omitted? Why is this important to your practice?
Through hands-on engagement with collected materials - such as books, drawings, and photographs - we will examine how these documents hold intrinsic value, beyond merely referencing something else. The course will focus on the decisions made by archivists and librarians and how their choices shape the organisation, accessibility, and understanding of knowledge.
The course will be led by key figures with expertise in organising collections. Through direct interaction with these spaces, and by actively engaging with donated materials we will explore how knowledge is categorised, shared, and utilised in spaces for storytelling, reflection and learning.
Synnøve Marie Vik is the academic director of The Picture Collection (Billedsamlingen), the collection of historic photographs at the Department for Special Collections, University of Bergen Library. Vik holds a PhD in visual culture, is trained as an art historian and curator, and has worked as a museum director, curator and art critic, as well as a special adviser in art and cultural politics. Her research interests include archival studies and media ecology connected to the history of photography as well as contemporary art, with a particular focus on the relationships between nature and technology.
Trond Hilmar Søbstad is Senior Librarian at the Fine Art and Design Library at KMD and subject specialist for The Art Academy – Department of Contemporary Art. He has worked for fifteen years in the KHiB/KMD Library and has studied Art History, Literature and has a Cand. Philol. degree in Documentation Studies with a thesis on the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg/Warburg Library (Hamburg/London) from 2000.
Adam Jaghouar recently graduated from BAS with the project Inhabiting marginal spaces: Doing architecture with the other-than-human in collaboration with Milan Delbecke. The project questioned how can architecture engage with and respond to marginal, non-human environments in a way that acknowledges and works with the existing ecosystems, materials, and conditions of the site?
