Artistic research with sensitive archives: Insights into artist–researcher collaboration from the Art or Science exhibition project

This seminar departs from our shared collaborative experience of working with sensitive archives, explored in connection with the larger exhibition and research project Art or Science (Kumu Art Museum, University of Tartu Museum, Estonian Academy of Arts; 2021–2024). In mapping, for the first time, scientific illustrations held in Estonian collections—focusing primarily on the long nineteenth century and on scientific collections formed within Russian imperial contexts—researchers and artists encountered a number of challenges. How should one work through and exhibit (if at all) materials connected to structural racial, social, and gendered violence and inequality? How can colonial amnesia be addressed? 

Drawing on concrete examples, we discuss how artistic research and artist–researcher collaboration can offer tools for engaging with collections, shaping research questions and agendas, and finding approaches to representing and exhibiting sensitive materials.