Abstracts, Primitive Tider no. 18

Ingar Figenschau – War Remains as Cultural Heritage: Rescue operation or awkward embrace? Norddalen in Troms County, Norway, is today a relatively secluded valley, but within grim and dark winter months in 1944-1945 war crimes took place under the direction of Nazi ideology and about 150 Russian prisoners of war lost their lives under the hand of the Third Reich. …

We’re here for a good time (not a long time) – by Elin Andreassen

Abstract from a project presentation by Elin Andreassen. How do you act when you realize that your favorite café might disappear? In handling the qualities that is already there, urban planning tends to give priority to architectonic qualities. Things that are already there – in action – the institutions with all their people, know-how’s and their traditional and present-day functions …

History Without Humans: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Theory and Method – by Tim LeCain

Photo: Fastily at en.wikipedia Recent developments in neo-materialist thinking—itself deeply influenced by new ideas stemming from neuroscience, science and technology studies, theories of extended and embodied cognition, among others—have begun to suggest that human culture, at least in some key aspects, must be understood as emerging from and with the material environment around us, not as standing in opposition to …

Ballast: Creating Cultural Connections Across Time and Space – by Mats Burström

Along the shores in Newfoundland there is an abundance of flint to be found although this material does not occur naturally in the area. The reason for the presence of flint is that it was used as ballast by sailing vessels in the transatlantic migratory fishery that started in the beginning of the sixteenth century and lasted for about four …

Memory and its materiality: the crafting of heritage – by Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

Abstract of paper presented in Prague at the 1st Object Matters-workshop, 10-13 December, 2015. Memory and its materiality is about the transformation of fragments of material culture, unpretentious things, into heritage. Materiality does not merely refer to the material properties of things, their type, shape, measurements, texture and style. It also points to their relations to people and to what …

They never left – by Ingar Figenschau

Presentation of Ph.D. project on war remains in Norddalen, Troms County. This project focuses on WW2 war remains in Norddalen, today a place relatively secluded and overgrown, but once a place of gruesome events and war crimes under the direction of Nazi ideology. From being a remote valley, Norddalen became within the short winter months in 1944-1945 a place where …