Image-Thinking: the integration of art making and academic reflection
What can be produced when creative and intellectual practices become more connected?
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In conjunction with the opening of the Decriminalizing History exhibition at the University Library, we are delighted to have a lecture by Mieke Bal on the integration of art making and academic reflection.
Image-Thinking: the integration of art making and academic reflection
Using the concept of image-thinking, this lecture explores the connection between cultural analysis and artistic practice with a special focus on the role trauma plays in attempts to make experience visible. In a timely amendment to our well-worn distinctions between doing and thinking, Mieke Bal draws on a lifetime of experience of writing about art, making films and installations, and curating exhibitions to show us how these practices can be brought into dialogue with cultural theory.
The audience is requested to watch beforehand an eight-minute video, accessible here: Don Quijote stuttering
Following the lecture, there will be a seminar on the Decriminalizing History exhibition in which members of the UiB community will present short pieces of cultural analysis connected to the exhibition. All are invited to take part in the discussion and feedback. The seminar will take place from 13:00-16:00 in the book tower area on the first floor of the Arts and Humanities Library.
On Mieke Bal:
A renowned cultural theorist, critic and video artist, Bal’s research and writing ranges from biblical and classical antiquity to 17th-century and contemporary art. Co-founder of the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), her work develops interdisciplinary approaches to cultural artifacts and their potential effects, with particular touchstones in gender, migratory culture, psychoanalysis, and the critique of capitalism. Her early work comes together in A Mieke Bal Reader (2006). Her most recent book is Image-Thinking: Artmaking as Cultural Analysis.
In 2017, Bal curated at an exhibit at the Munch Museum in Oslo. Her Emma & Edvard Looking Sideways: Loneliness and the Cinematic, which accompanied the exhibition, demonstrates her integrated approach to academic, artistic and curatorial work.
Bal is the recipient of five honorary doctorates, including from the University of Bergen.
In the academic year 2022-2023, Bal holds the annual chair The Invention of Europe through Languages and Cultures at the Collège de France.
