Skin of memory

The focus of this thesis is Untitled 2018, a multi layered black and white photographic collage, pieced together with split paper pins and mounted on aluminium by the Norwegian contemporary artist Frida Orupabo (1986-). By focusing on skin itself and using Frantz Fanon’s concepts of “epidermalization of inferiority” and the “racial epidermal schema”, I analyse Untitled 2018 using trauma theory and affect theory. I also engage with the work of scholars who have discussed what may be termed the “phenomenology of race”, such as George Yancy and Sarah Ahmed to approach the question: “In what way can we understand the fragmented body of Untitled 2018?” In my analysis of Untitled 2018, art historian Jill Bennett’s concept of “empathic vision” is central. Empathy as a mode of seeing, explains Bennett, combines both affective and intellectual processes as we engage with the art object beyond the iconographical or symbolical interpretation. The concept of “sense memory”, a form of bodily memory that exists outside ordinary memory and registers as an affective imprint of a traumatic event, that was defined by Charlotte Delbo, is also central to my discussion. In addition I have discussed Untitled 2018 in relation to the concept of “postmemory'' as formulated by Professor Marianne Hirsch. Postmemory, argues Hirsch, “describes the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before.” In this thesis I have also discussed in which ways methods of display can influence perception of the art work