Bodies of Work: Theorising Embodiment in Black Artistic Practices in Denmark, 1980s-2020s

Gender Studies Seminar with Nina Cramer

Bodies of Work: Theorising Embodiment in Black Artistic Practices in Denmark, 1980s-2020s

Abstract

Contemporary black visual artists have a rich record of working in Denmark. But while their work has been treated as topical, it is rarely approached as historical, producing significant gaps in knowledge about these artworks beyond their immediate contexts of creation. 

This presentation will construct a genealogy of embodied practices as diverse as Maria Thastum’s digital self-portraiture in the 1980s, Michelle Eistrup’s endurance-based disruptions in the 1990s, Ellen Nyman’s mediatized happenings in the 2000s, Jeannette Ehlers’ collective figurations in the 2010s, and Jupiter Child’s audience activations in the 2020s. It does so to explore the effects of approaching black artists working in Denmark as a collective, but internally differentiated, group in contemporary art history, thus contributing to emerging discussions about the historicization and interpretation of black cultural production in Denmark and, more broadly, the Nordic region.

Bio

Nina Cramer is a PhD candidate at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Arts and Cultural Studies where her research explores artistic practices and discourses of the African diaspora in Denmark from the 1980s to the 2020s. Alongside Mai Takawira, she co-founded G/HOSTING, a curatorial platform that promotes critical and reparative approaches to ongoing colonial histories. She has also co-edited several publications, including Black Monument (forthcoming, 2025), Et ulydigt arkiv: Udvalgte tekster af Sara Ahmed (2020), and special issues of the art historical journal Periskop on “Blackness” (2021) and “Faroese Art History Today” (2024).

Chair: Birke Friedländer, Doctoral candidate in Gender Studies, Lund University

The Seminar Series

The Gender Studies Seminar Series invites researchers to share their insight on key issues for gendered and sexualized lives and knowledges, and to engage in critical discussions about the development of gender studies as an interdisciplinary and intersectional research field. Bringing together scholars from various research fields and theoretical traditions, this seminar series offers a platform for critical reflexions and new insights.

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