Many of the artworks in the Archive of Destruction are catalysts for conversations around political and environmental turmoil, social ills, colonial oppression, and institutional conservatism. For the first event of this series of talks, two of the artists whose work is in the archive present their projects and discuss the political, historic, and social contexts in which they were realised. Jes Fernie gives an overview of the Archive of Destruction.
Maja Bekan is a Serbian artist based in Rotterdam. Her project A Series of Unexpected Incidents (2014–2017) is a sleuth narrative about the disappearance of a public sculpture in a Warsaw housing estate in 1992. Working with local residents over a two-year period Bekan goes in search of the sculpture and unearths a story about fear, puritanism, and institutional interference.
Kristina Norman is an Estonian artist based in Tallinn. After-War (2009) is an exploration of the political tensions between Estonian nationalists and Russians in Tallinn, the Estonian capital. Her installation of a life-size golden replica of a contested World War II Red Army soldier in a public space leads to her arrest, protests, nation-wide TV coverage, the swift removal of the statue, and her participation in the 2009 Venice Biennial.