Archival Grid. Artistic Strategies at the Intersection of Subjective and Forensic Witnessing
Charlott Eifler
Clarissa Thieme
Saturday
12.09.2026
12:00–15:00
What happens when memory is transformed into evidence? The artist-run workshop Artistic Strategies at the Intersection of Subjective and Forensic Witnessing investigates the relationship between forensic evidence, archives and collective memory.
Vast archival collections, such as those of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), draw attention to the relationship between forensic evidence, measurement and collective memory. However, they also raise doubts about a simple causal relationship between legal reckoning, social reconciliation and collective memory work. How are ‘tools of evidence’ employed artistically, but also legally and politically, and what impact does this have on our archives and our respective social contexts?
The ‘Forensic Turn’ (E. Weizman) in post-conflict societies has reinforced an already dominant database logic and aesthetic. But are data archives, with their subject-object obfuscation rooted in forensics, even capable of forming a collective memory, or are they too closely interwoven with a regime of digital coloniality (A. Isanović) that inevitably silences subjective testimony, both individually and collectively?