Yksityskohta veistoksesta Philadelphia Museum of Artin edustalla
Luennoin tänään tiistaina 13.3. klo 17:30–19 Turun suomenkielisen työväenopiston Matkailupiirissä. Luentoni otsikko on “Yhdysvaltoja ristiin rastiin”, ja esittelen siinä kimaran amerikkalaisia matkakohteita: Seattle, Sacramento, San Francisco, Yosemite, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Williamsburg ja Washington.
My article on Juhani Rinne and photography just came out in the journal Photography & Culture.
Photographic Bodies and Biographical Narratives: The Finnish State Archaeologist Juhani Rinne in Pictures
Abstract:
Although the new approaches of biographical writing and current theories on photography have similar tendencies, there are also frictions between them. They stem from the commitment of biography to concentrate on a certain person and his or her life course, in my case the life of the State Archaeologist Juhani Rinne (1872-1950). I present photographs of Rinne as a case study and focus on the tensions between biographical narrativity and photographic bodies. The pictures of the Rinne collection seem to be linked to each other only by his name and body. The concept “image-body“ is used to denote this discursive setting, where a relation between lived and represented bodies is conceived in terms of knowledge and truth. Rinne’s image-body draws attention to work and its constitutive position in performing academic masculinity. It resonates with discourses on nationalism and civilized men. The repeated, orderly poses combined with formal dress go beyond a simplistic dichotomy of private and public.
A rather amazing web site: “Closer to Van Eyck: Rediscovering the Ghent Altarpiece”
http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/
Espoo City Museum just announced that a rare piece of medieval jewellery was discovered on a field in Espoo near Helsinki. The object made of bronze and resembling the man in the moon was found by a metal detectorist. I identified the piece on the basis of a picture on the internet. After that the dectorist took the piece to the museum.
A piece of medieval bronze jewellery discovered in Espoo. Photo by Matti Huuhka/Museokuva
Only one similar piece of jewellery was previously known in Finland. It was found in Sauvo in 1939. Two other similar objects are from the island of Gotland in Sweden. Another one of them is part of the famous Amunde hoard deposited in 1361. Consequently, it provides a dating also for the other similar objects. Because they are the only ones that I know, this group remains rather mysterious.
Immonen, Visa 2009. The grin of the man in the moon: A medieval bronze pendant from Sauvo. In Pellinen, Hanna-Maria (ed.), Maasta, kivestä ja hengestä – Earth, Stone and Spirit: Markus Hiekkanen Festschrift. Turku & Helsinki: Arkeologia, Turun yliopisto; Taidehistoria, Helsingin yliopisto, Suomen Kirkkohistoriallinen Seura, Suomen Keskiajan Arkeologinen Seura, 326–332.
In August 2011, I started my three-year period as a fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki.
The title of my project is The Middle Ages as a Material Process: Archaeological Perspectives on Premodernity
My work takes a new look at the Middle Ages as an archaeological period and ‘premodern’ and ‘medieval’ as disciplinary concepts, arguing for their re-evaluation as a material and social processes. How is an artefact medieval? Why does it matter, whether an object was made in the premodern or the modern era?
The first line of investigation is based on archaeological materials from Finland and other Nordic countries, e.g. the finds from the 13th-century bishop’s see at Koroinen near Turku. By combining archaeological methods of studying artefacts with theoretically informed analysis, I seek to trace processes which established and affected the material cultures regarded as ‘medieval’ and ‘premodern’.
The second line of investigation focuses on the contemporary and past disciplinary discourses of Nordic archaeology, and their notions of the Middle Ages. Although ‘premodern’ and ‘medieval’ usually remain undefined, the concepts have been tacitly understood in various ways throughout the research history of medieval archaeology. Thinking about medievality provides new possibilities for a range of disciplines to cross their borders and enliven theoretical discussions.