Antje van Wichelen

Antje van Wichelen was invited artist at the Rautenstrach-Joest-Mueseum as part of the first edition of the Artist Meets Archive programme.

Among the questions that she pursues in her works is how the fascination and desire arose in the 19th century to measure, categorize and define the “Other”. With the help of her method of consciously switching from the photographic medium to film, the originally frozen motifs of the archive photographs become dynamic and almost living portraits, in which the depicted persons appear to withdraw themselves from the viewer’s voyeuristic gaze. The quick succession of the lined-up photographs produces the effect that not only the shots’ underlying schemata and uniformity are revealed, but the individuality of every single personality is also made visible in particular.

I work with archives of 19th century colonial photography that tried to categorize people. These archives tell us more about their makers than about the subjects of their study. An archive is a handy tool to look at where we come from, evaluate where we are today and to project into the future: where do we want to stand ten, twenty years from now? In that sense, the Archive as a part of our Cultural Archive must be and stay open for permanent evaluation and discussion.

Antje van Wichelen