History Lesson: Queer sound archives and Chaser Art

The archive and the classroom are jointly concerned with how history and knowledge are conveyed. Through sound, text, and fiction, The Archive of Pink Noises (Arkivet för Rosa Brus) probes the conditions and possibilities of queer archiving. What does a queer archive sound like? What counts as a queer archive? Why are queer archives needed? How can we cruise an archive, and what would that entail?

Andria Nyberg Forshage’s lecture-performance, “CHASER ART” turns the gaze onto the many famous artists who have made their name making desirable images of trans women and trans fem people in contemporary Western art history. Rarely, however, has this structure dared to speak its own name. Naming this genre as “chaser art” through an act of performative curating, this lecture gestures effeminately towards a comprehensive rewriting of modern and contemporary art history.

Indicating someone with a certain interest in trans women or other trans people, sexual or otherwise, the chaser forms a liminal yet integral figure shaping how trans feminine lives are seen, displayed, loved, imagined, and objectified. So who chases the chaser?

The Archive of Pink Noises

The Archive of Pink Noises (Arkivet för Rosa Brus) views queer sound as a bearer of history and aims to collect, archive and publish queer culture production in sonic form. This work unfolds in collaboration with other archives, artists, activists and scholars. By collecting, archiving, reading and arranging public events, they explore together with the participants what pink noise and a queer sound archive can be.

AfRB is run by Birt Berglund, Anna Giertz and Johan Sundell.
www.rosabrus.nu

Andria Nyberg Forshage

Andria Nyberg Forshage is a writer, poet and curator who works interdisciplinary with transfeminist and queer political aesthetics, perception, desire and survival. She/they is part of the editorial team of Paletten Art Magazine, curates exhibitions and symposia in Sweden and internationally, and teaches Text as an Artistic Medium at the Royal Institute of Arts and Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation.
Andria Nyberg Forshage is educated at CuratorLab at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design and holds a master’s degree in Aesthetics from Södertörn University. Her/their texts can be read in several magazines, anthologies and catalogues, including Frieze, Kritiker and an upcoming anthology published by Routledge.