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DESCRIPTION:Landscapes of Ignorance: Colonial Imaginaries in Danish and Nor
 wegian Art and Visual Culture\n\nMathias Danbolt\n	Associate Professor\, De
 partment of Arts and Cultural Studies\, University of Copenhagen\, Denmark
 \n\nAbstract: \n\nThe year of 2017 marked the centennial of Denmark’s dive
 stment of its former Caribbean colony\, the Danish West Indies\, to the US
  in 1917. After almost 250 years under Danish rule\, the islands of St. Th
 omas\, St. John\, and St. Croix became the US Virgin Islands in 1917. The 
 centennial became the site of new critical interest in Denmark’s colonial 
 history and participation in the transatlantic enslavement trade – a chapt
 er that for long have been severely selectively remembered in Danish publi
 c culture. Over the last two years\, numerous exhibitions\, publications\,
  seminars and performances have sought to create contexts for new critical
  discussions of the effects and affects of Denmark’s colonial history and 
 participation in the enslavement trade. These events have opened up import
 ant and difficult conversations on the colonial legacies of Danish archive
 s\, museums\, and educational institutions\, and the need for engaging in 
 processes of decolonization and reparation.\n\nThis new engagement with co
 lonial history and the coloniality of the present is the backdrop for this
  lecture that centers on a series of watercolors from the Danish West Indi
 es from the early 1800s located in the archives of the Danish Maritime Mus
 eum. The Danish navy officer\, customs inspector and amateur artist Freder
 ik von Scholten’s watercolors of the plantations and great houses on St. C
 roix have gained an almost ubiquitous presence in books and exhibitions on
  the Danish Caribbean. The paintings clearly draw on the conventions of th
 e genre of the “plantation picturesque”\, where topographical conventions 
 are enfolded in a picturesque aesthetics that domesticates the tropical la
 ndscape and keep the realities of enslavement at arm’s length (Nelson 2016
 \; Bohls 2014). But unlike similar images by artists such as James Hakewil
 l’s paintings from Jamaica\, von Scholten’s watercolors never made it to p
 rint during his lifetime. They started to circulate more than a century la
 ter\, often framed uncritically as “windows” to the past in Danish history
  books on colonialism.\n\nIf prints of plantation picturesque\, such as Ha
 kewill’s\, can be said to have functioned as “documents of denial” (to bor
 row J.M. Vlach’s suggestive term) in debates on slavery and abolition in G
 reat Britain in the 1820s\, I want to suggest that von Scholten’s images p
 erform a similar task in regards to discussions of the memory politics of 
 colonialism and slavery in Denmark today. Analyzing the present-day use an
 d circulation of von Scholten’s images\, I argue that the enduring popular
 ity of the plantation picturesque speak to the political after-effects of 
 colonial visualities and highlight how these so-called “quaint” images con
 tinue to contribute to the domestication of the colonial – and historical 
 – landscape to this day.\n\nBio: Mathias Danbolt is a Danish-Norwegian art
  historian who has a special focus on queer\, feminist\, and decolonial pe
 rspectives on art and visual culture. Danbolt is currently leading the col
 lective research project “The Art of Nordic Colonialism: Writing Transcult
 ural Art Histories” (2019-2021)\, supported by Carlsberg Foundation\, whic
 h examines the effects and affects of Nordic colonialism within the field 
 of art. He is the curator of the visual culture exhibition Blind Spots. Im
 ages of the Danish West Indies Colony (2017-18)\, co-curated with Mette Ki
 a Krabbe Meyer and Sarah Giersing at the Royal Danish Library\, and has co
 ntributed to numerous journals and books\, including collections such as O
 therwise: Imagining Queer Feminist Art Histories (Manchester UP\, 2016)\, 
 Racialization\, Racism\, and Anti-Racism in the Nordic Countries (Palgrave
 \, 2018)\, and Curatorial Challenges (Routledge\, 2019). Danbolt is an Ass
 ociate Professor of Art History at University of Copenhagen\, Denmark\, an
 d member of The Young Academy\, under The Royal Danish Academy of Science 
 and Letters.\n\nSponsors: \n	Prof. Charmaine A. Nelson\, Art History and Co
 mmunication Studies\, McGill University\n	Media@McGill\n\n \n
DTSTART:20190321T200000Z
DTEND:20190321T220000Z
LOCATION:W-215\, Arts Building\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 0G5\, 853 rue She
 rbrooke Ouest
SUMMARY:Speaker Series | Mathias Danbolt 'Landscapes of Ignorance: Colonial
  Imaginaries in Danish and Norwegian Art and Visual Culture'
URL:https://www.mcgill.ca/ahcs/channels/event/speaker-series-mathias-danbol
 t-landscapes-ignorance-colonial-imaginaries-danish-and-norwegian-art-29278
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