Sketch by Tove Nyholm
Tove Nyholm: Exhibition at MOMU (Moesgaard Museum)
An exhibition will be developed during the project period drawing upon the anthropological, philosophical and artistic projects. This exhibit will span between the specific lives of elders and the universality of aging - the human condition of being old. In close collaboration with the project researchers, it will build on a range of items, pictures, audiovisual and textual information - collected during fieldwork and philosophical explorations - that will be set into action in the exhibit.
Upon entering, the visitor will find herself enclosed in a work of art: Full sized figural drawings by Maria Speyer will fill the walls and ask: How does our common field of experience come into play when it comes to the aging body?From here you move into the basic structure of the exhibition, which is a set up with local portraits, where we integrate the themes of the project. Entering one such individual space, you will find a pathway of steppingstones leading to a person at the far end. On our way - whenever you step on one of these 'stones' - a panel (with textural information/pictures/or enclosed items) lights up on the walls at your right or left side. Left side is the personal history or life span, right side is societal history of the region in question. In this way, we will literally walk the time lived of this person in a specific place.
Upon reaching the end of the path, we find a flower-like pattern on the floor: two circles one in the other and again encircled by bows. The smaller circle is the "body", the bigger is the home of this person. The bows are the activities of care and relationships. An arrangement of items in a ritual-like way is placed in the circles. Images or figurations of a person will be at the center.
Finally, the philosophers will take us up to the next level of the room, where a gallery all the way round gives access to read quotes, sentences by philosophers, as well as lay people from the ethnographic studies, set up on the walls in varied size, colour and materiality. The gallery will also give the visitor the overall view of the five different and yet universal pathways to old age.
