Karmaklubb* x Nasjonalmuseet x Kunstnernes Hus

Join us for a preview of Queering the Museum – Preus (2022) and an evening of drag and joy! The screening will be followed by a conversation with drag artists Frida Marida and Cassie Brødskive and a drag-studded celebration into the evening at Kunstnernes Hus. The event is hosted in collaboration with Karmaklubb* and Kunstnernes Hus.

The film is starring drag activist Frida Marida (Hani Assaf, LEB) and artist and drag academic Cassie Brødskive (Jens Martin Hartvedt Arvesen, NOR), presenting a raw response — touching, teasing, and perceiving the architecture of the Preus Museum, Norway’s National Museum for Photography. The work can be read not only as a reaction to the building itself - the hierarchies and social structures of the institution and the place as a historical site - but also relating to the idea of ‘performing in front of the camera’ in a direct and intuitive manner, using the photographic print as a tool in such investigations.

The film is a result of the collaboration between nomadic queer platform Karmaklubb* and Preus Museum with curator Hilde Herming. It will be shown at the exhibition Over regnbuen / Over the Rainbow, opening at Preus museum 28 May 2022. Created with support from The Freedom of Expression Foundation / Stiftelsen Fritt Ord and The Ministry of Culture and Equality / Kulturdepartementet.

Established sometime around 2018, Karmaklubb* has for several years been investigating various architectures — physical as well as virtual, historical, archival — and how they can be challenged and tried out, potentially changed through a direct approach to the use and the presence of bodies in those spaces. Queering the museum is an ongoing project (2019–) and one example of such hands-on-research, or perhaps field work, that deals directly with houses representing archives, collections, our perception of history and truth, in particular art museums. Among the ‘cases’ are the old and new Munch Museum / MUNCH, Oslo; KODE Art Museums and Composer Homes, Bergen; the National Museum of Norway, Oslo; and Preus Museum, Horten.

Motstrøms

The screening is part of the series Motstrøms, presenting films that entertain while bending and breaking boundaries. During 2022 the National Museum will screen both classics within queer cinema and new films taking form in the gaps between art and cinema.

Queer Culture Year

"Motstrøms" is part of the National Museum’s programming during Queer Culture Year / Skeivt kulturår 2022. Queer Culture Year 2022 celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Norway.