Abstract

WAR AS EVER! was the result of an invitation from the Atlas Van Stolk, part of Rotterdam’s historical museum, Museum Rotterdam, to make accessible to a broader range of audiences one unique artifact in its collection. Through a process of visual interpretation and photographic re-presentation and the activation of a performing character in the public domain, the artists explored similarities between historical and recent political and religious conflicts leading to the repositioning of the collection in a contemporary social perspective and its presentation in a museum distinct in nature and remit to that of Museum Rotterdam, the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam. The project’s framework activated an art practice as the interface between museum culture and the problematics of the public sphere, to action ideas and practices of engaged citizenship on the part of the artist-researchers. Consideration of diverse curatorial approaches, experiments in exhibition practice and the public presentation of artistic research were enabled through a programme for exhibition, dialogue and exchange, and blogging. Testing a critical model and strategies for linking artistic research and the contested concept of ‘the public’, the coming together of two museums and the extending of their normal domains was negotiated by the artists.