L: Can you talk a bit about how you understand archives in this context?
I once heard this analogy, you have some women who are like ‘I fight for women’s rights but I wouldn’t call myself a feminist’ and in some sense, I do agree with them, because they have the freedom to be whatever they want, but I feel like it’s also important to acknowledge… I will make it queer for me now, because I don’t want to speak on explicitly women’s issues.
So, you can mention ‘I’m queer, and I don’t want to be associated with the queer community’, that’s perfectly fine, that’s your own choice, that would be liberation. However, you also need to be aware of the fact that there is not a lot of space to say that even, so I think ‘archive’ is already making that statement, and then it being documented, so the archive would be documentation, an collection of whatever expressions of marginalized groups, even if they maybe don’t want to be associated with that explicitly, it does allow a framework of reflection.
Maybe a great example would be Pipilotti Rist, a Swedish artist, she makes lots of art about women’s issues, but she isn’t explicitly saying she’s a feminist. It’s still interesting to look at her art in a feminist context, but maybe not force the opinions of feminism onto her, I think that’s maybe a good way to find a balance between people who might not want to identify with political activism, but you can still use their expressions in the sense that they are a vital development for marginalized groups.
L. So looking at it through a specific framework or from a specific perspective…
Yeah, looking mainly through a framework, so you don’t force anyone to partake in it if they don’t want to. Of course with consent of the artist in question, because it would be very unfair if she didn’t even want to be analysed in this way, she also has the space to refuse that, I feel like. Let’s say if she mentions she doesn’t allow it, she says ‘I don’t even want any interpretation of my work to happen, I just want you to experience it’, that’s also ok, that’s her individual freedom to express that.
L: I am just thinking about the practicality of that, like getting consent for analysing something…
Yeah, that is indeed a hard one, maybe if we look back at parts of old archives, we do not even know if they want to be involved in it, but how can you even… thinking about consent is also a very difficult issue, how do you allow someone to be consensual in an archive?
L: Yeah… I’m also wondering about what role consent has in an archive, like do we need the consent of some Renaissance painter to look at that art from today’s perspective? Because you cannot look at it today without making an interpretation of some sort…
That would also touch upon the idea of ‘Is anything ever ethical?’ Maybe in a certain time frame it is, but it won’t always be in any time frame. I also once discussed this in a performance I did, where, I am mainly vegan, I identified as vegan back then, and I was very much interested in the idea of film and the Hays Code⁵.
“There was no other space to express themselves, so what else could they be than a monster? It was at least something, you know?”
There was an event called ‘Other ways of watching’, and it was a modification of cinema… So, the Hays Code would be an explicit discrimination of various marginalized groups in film, and I was discussing queer identification, and I thought ‘Friday the 13th’ was a very interesting example because it clearly capitalizes on the great horror aesthetics, but at the time it was also a place for queer filmmakers to express themselves, because there was no such place.
But looking at it now, it was kind of… these queer film makers, they were kind of depicting themselves as monsters, but we cannot say whether that’s ethical or not, because it was their expression of being the monster, because there was no other space to express themselves, so what else could they be than a monster? It was at least something, you know?
So, in most of the ‘Friday the 13th’ movies, there are no queer people, explicitly, but there is the scene in one of the 7th movies, I guess, and someone does cannibalism, and it’s kind of interesting when you look at this very unethical action and film and you’re gruelling into it, like ‘oh my god’, and it’s kind of how we perceive queer B-film from the past, but also queer film now, like let’s say ‘Love, Simon’, which is very much maybe made for a straight audience, it’s enjoying the queer experience.
So, I wanted to re-enact that scene by eating pasta with meat in it, to discuss the idea that I’m gruelling into a scene of cannibalism, and making in that sense a political statement on the being of queer people in film, but I’m also partaking in an unethical action when it comes to a vegan perspective. Nothing can ever be 100 percent consensual or ethical, even if you aim to be, because time and place are very important, and context.
And that question is what plays a role for me a very much, so I wanted to present that question of ‘When am I apparent, will I ever be ethically apparent?’ I try to be, but maybe in 400 years or something with new context and new developments, what I did was very unethical.
“I think that’s a worry every activist will have ever, that their activism will be seen as very bad, reflecting on it, but in that time maybe you did something good and that’s also something to strive for.”
I think that’s a worry every activist will have ever, that their activism will be seen as very bad, reflecting on it, but in that time maybe you did something good and that’s also something to strive for. You allowed for progress and that’s always important. So, the role of the archive would be to encourage progress, and progress can never happen in a an always upward-direction, it’s circular, you always need to come back to a certain point and go on from there.
⁵short for ‘motion picture production code‘ (wikipedia link).
