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This article explores how two pioneering Mixed Reality Heritage Performances, including Sancho’s Journey at Marble Hill House in London, use smart AR glasses and live theatre to confront Britain’s colonial past. By immersing audiences in underrepresented narratives of...
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Held from August 31 to September 6, 2024, the How to Reframe Monuments workshop focused on five Soviet-era statues and memorials in northeastern Estonia—such as the removed Lenin statue in Narva, a WWII soldier in Sillamäe, and a Kreenholm strike monument. Organized...
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This article explores how artistic and activist practices in Sweden—and in contrast with Belarus—actively shape cultural heritage through community-led processes. Focusing on Swedish examples, such as grassroots memorials and emotionally charged public artworks, it...
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In Reading Museum Narratives, researcher Hagen Kjørholt presents a compelling narratological analysis of Holocaust exhibitions at the Jewish Museum Trondheim and the Oslo Jewish Museum. This study explores how historical narratives are constructed within museum...
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Russian authorities have added Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas to their official wanted list, alleging criminal charges related to her government’s removal of Soviet-era World War II monuments in Estonia. This is the first known instance of Russia targeting...
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The National Museum in Oslo sparked public debate after removing Christian Krohg’s iconic painting Leiv Eirikson Discovering America from public view, citing concerns over its colonial symbolism. The decision was widely criticized as an act of “cancel culture,”...
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The Nordic Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, featuring The Altersea Opera by Lap-See Lam, enters the heart of an ongoing Nordic debate: who gets to define culture? Amid discussions in Sweden over establishing a national cultural canon, this multisensory...
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The article explores the controversy surrounding the public sculptures of Croatian artist Ivan Meštrović in Chicago, particularly in light of the sociopolitical shifts following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. In response to these movements, the City of Chicago...
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Cancel Culture Club & Spa is a performative and discursive project that brings together artists, scholars, and activists from across the Nordic region to critically examine the impact of cancel culture on artistic freedom. Addressing issues like censorship, public...
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In the Nordic countries, particularly Sweden and Norway, there has been a concerted effort to address controversial monuments through recontextualization rather than removal. For instance, Sweden’s Public Art Agency has implemented temporary public art...
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In 2017, the Norwegian government cancelled two planned national memorials for the 2011 terrorist attacks by Anders Breivik due to strong protests from local residents near the proposed site at Sørbråten, opposite Utøya Island. The residents objected to the lack of...
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Moving Monuments is a research project based at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. It investigates how public statues and monuments from the Danish colonial era continue to shape memory culture today, both materially and...
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The project “AI Art Curation: Re-imagining the City of Helsinki” was developed for the Helsinki Biennial 2023, titled New Directions May Emerge. It uses artificial intelligence to reimagine the city of Helsinki through the lens of the Helsinki Art Museum...
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Summary for Posting: In winter 2023, Norway’s cultural sector was rocked by debates on woke and cancel culture, sparked by two incidents. The National Museum’s chief curator decided against displaying a painting deemed “colonial,” and Roald Dahl’s Norwegian publisher...
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In response to global protests in 2020, numerous controversial monuments were removed across the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. While these actions sparked debates about cancel culture, the key question remains: can societies remove or alter public symbols without...
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The publication Decolonizing Colonial Heritage: New Agendas, Actors and Practices in and beyond Europe, edited by Britta Timm Knudsen, John Oldfield, Elizabeth Buettner, and Elvan Zabunyan, offers a comprehensive examination of how various stakeholders are actively...
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On October 16, 2014, a 24-metre inflatable green sculpture appeared in Place Vendôme, one of Paris’s most historically charged squares — a site commissioned by Louis XIV, home to the Vendôme Column commemorating Napoleon’s military campaigns, and ringed by...
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This article by Michael Booth challenges the utopian image of the Nordic region, including its approach to cultural and historical narratives. While not directly about monuments, it critiques the idealized perception of Nordic societies as models of democracy and...
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On October 16, 2024, the Riga City Council made the controversial decision to dismantle several monuments in the city, including that of Russian general Barclay de Tolly in Esplanade Park, as well as monuments to writers Andrejs Upītis and Sudrābus Edžus. The decision...
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The article titled “‘The painting is colonial’: cancel culture and a heated media debate in Norway” by Håkon Larsen examines two significant cultural controversies that occurred in Norway in early 2023, which sparked intense public debates...
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The research project “Rethink and Reload: Monuments in 21st Century Democracies,” hosted by Stockholm University, investigates how democratic societies, including Sweden and other Nordic countries, address controversial public monuments in the modern era....
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Oxford’s Oriel College has chosen to keep the statue of Cecil Rhodes but will commission Zimbabwean artists to create new sculptures reflecting on his colonial legacy. This initiative, part of the Oxford Zimbabwe Arts Partnership, seeks to foster dialogue and...
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The event “Reimagining Memory: Art Through Social Monuments,” organized by Public Art Agency Sweden, held on November 23, 2023, explores how art can reshape public memory through social monuments in Sweden. It features discussions and presentations by...
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In 2020, a striking example of recontextualization emerged in Denmark when artist Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld dumped a replica bust of King Frederik V, founder of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, into a Copenhagen canal. This provocative act, dubbed a...
