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Archive 2.0: Loyal to the Royal?
The king is dead, long live the king!
September 2020 - January 2021
The last edition of the Archive 2.0 ResearchLab we have been critically reflecting on the broad topic of royalty from a variety of historical and contemporary perspectives: socio-cultural, anthropological, political and visual. Based on the given access to the unique, rich collection of photographs from Spaarnestad Photo / National Archives depicting the history of Dutch monarchy (as well as other royal families around the world) the goal is to investigate the meaning and legacy of being 'royal' today.
In the context of ongoing global transformations to either radically question the power structures of the past (aiming at a progressive democratisation of social life), or - on the contrary - to revive conservative sentiments and glory of the "kingdom" (as done by, for instance, Putin in Russia), what role art and our, oh irony!, Royal Academy of Art can do to take a currently relevant, critical and creative position towards these developments? What do we take and keep from the past, and what do leave behind? What possibly the "new royalty" could be, redefined, reinterpreted for the demands of the 21st century?
Guest lectures by artist Pablo Lerma, writer and philosopher Viktor Frölke, photographer Leo Erken and collection specialist Spaarnestad Photo Freek Baars.
Highlighted students work:
The Royal Seat
Peyman Fazeli
Oh, I wish I was vaccinated
Clara Sharell
How to overthrow a monarchy
Frederik Klanberg
Oranje Nassau
Laura van den Enden
Symposium
Alexander Koch
Rewind, 2020
Rio Drop
Student picks > Some images from the collection Spaarnestad used as inspiration:
