Moment: Lens-based Media Evidence and Aesthetics in Sweden, 1939–1969
Short description
Moment is a multi-disciplinary research project about lens-based media cultures in Sweden between 1939 and 1969. The point of departure for the project is two central aspects of film and photography: evidence and aesthetics. It deals with our conception of lens-based media’s unique capacity to capture reality, which has pervaded the use of film and photography as well as their aesthetic ideals and expressions. This period of time – from the onset of World War Two through the year after the student uprising – coincides with the establishment of the Swedish welfare state, which largely determines the project’s direction and the examples included.
The research project is being conducted as a series of case studies in which carefully chosen events, subjects and practices are studied and problematised. With these new entrances – and the way in which the study is conducted – the project contributes to a deeper understanding of how evidence and aesthetics are interwoven with lens-based media and how film and photography have been produced, distributed and used. The study is geographically limited to Sweden, but the contexts and examples span from local to national and international. An important part of the research project is its forms for publishing and mediation, in which curatorial methods play a decisive role in presentations of each phase, which are given periodically up until the final exhibition in 2025.
The research project is collaboratively headed by: Niclas Östlind, HDK-Valand, Louise Wolthers, Hasselblad Foundation and Mats Jönsson, GPS400 – Centre for Collaborative Visual Research.
