Description
Special exhibition “Social Contagion”, Moesgård Museum, February 11 – May 14, 2017.
Jeanette Lykkegård: Death and reincarnation in Siberia
An animistic understanding of social contagion
What does living and dying mean to people in Northern Kamchatka?
This project explores the wanted and unwanted relations between the living, the newly dead and the ancestors.
In relation to Epicenter I explore social contagion through an animistic framework, where spirits are understood as real beings with tangible effects on our lives. In an animistic understanding, bacteria, vira, alcohol, human and non-human beings are seen as social persons with their own intentions. Thus, the biomedical distinction between communicative and non-communicative diseases can be transgressed, and new understandings for social contamination arise. Protection from unwished spreading, whether it is consumption of alcohol, suicides or the flu, therefore depends on the knowledge about how to socially engage with that influence.
Jeanette Lykkegård: Død og reinkarnation i Sibirien
En animistisk forståelse af social smitte
Hvad betyder liv og død for mennesker i det nordlige Kamchatka i Sibirien?
Dette projekt udforsker de ønskede og uønskede forbindelser mellem de levende, de nyligt afdøde og forfædrene. I relation til Epicenter undersøger jeg social smitte ud fra en animistisk forståelsesramme, hvor eksempelvis ånder opfattes som levende væsner med direkte påvirkning af vores liv. I en animistisk forståelse er bakterier, virus, alkohol, levende og døde alle sociale personer med egne intentioner. Herved kan det biomedicinske skel mellem smitsomme og ikke-smitsomme sygdomme overskrides, og nye forståelser for social smitte kan opstå. Beskyttelse mod uønsket spredning, det være sig indtagelse af alkohol, selvmord eller influenza, afhænger derfor af en viden om, hvordan man engagerer sig socialt med disse påvirkninger.
Project Details
A film by: EPICENTER
EPICENTER explores the social life of epidemics – including cultural epidemics. The Centre aims to fill a gap in scientific as well as popular understandings of contagion, by asking: What is contagion? The traditional distinction between communicable and non-communicable diseases is challenged through research. Currently epidemics of non-communicable diseases are spreading, but the social dynamics of how these diseases spread are poorly theorized.
The Centre is currently hosting studies in Denmark, South Africa, Uganda, Siberia, Nepal, and Egypt on cancer, HIV, diabetes, drug addiction, trauma, suicide, migration, prevention and treatment regimes.
The Centre will be a platform of communication between researchers and the public through museum exhibitions.
For more information visit: http://epicenter.au.dk