Residency at Museum der Kulturen Basel

Artist Shiva Lynn Burgos was invited by the Museum der Kulturen Basel to access the museum’s archives and object reserves to create a new, contemporary body of work primarily focused on her cyanotype and photographic practice.

Her residency in Basel took place mid May – June 2023

The Museum der Kulturen Basel (MKB), one of five public museums in Canton Basel-Stadt is the largest anthropological museum in Switzerland and one of the most eminent of its kind in Europe. The MKB collections are renowned throughout the world and include over 340,000 objects, around 50,000 historical photographs, and roughly 200,000 documentary images. It collects and exhibits works and objects from around the world for the purpose of raising awareness and understanding for all cultures. Preserving the collections is just as much part of the MKB’s tasks as doing research on them. Findings are imparted by means of exhibitions, events, and publications. With its exhibitions and events, MKB seeks to enrich cultural life and awareness for all forms of culture. MKB publishes the findings of its research projects, thus making them accessible to a wider audience. They also feed into exhibitions and public events at the museum such as the gallery talk series: “Grasping anthropology”

On June 7th, 2023, Burgos, in conversation with Oceania curator Beatrice Voirol participated in the artist talk: New York – Mariwai: Werke einer Kunstkooperation (works from an art cooperation) as a part of “Grasping anthropology.”

In conjunction with the talk, Burgos offered an interactive workshop with collaborator Betsy Green, an expert in 19th century photographic development techniques, on the cyanotype process where they presented the results of the research and artistic residency at the museum as well as a program of short films which highlighted her work and interaction with the Kwoma people of Mariwai village Papua New Guinea.

Musée Archéologique de Nice – Cimiez

“My collaboration with Le Musée Archéologique de Nice – Cimiez allows me the opportunity as an artist to have access to a distinctive collection that is normally off limits to the public. I was able to see, touch and experience the collection in a completely unique way. I discovered that the understated artefacts held in the museum reserves have as much interest or perhaps more, then the main exposed displays. These subordinated historic objects, consisting of fragmented glass vessels, pottery, utensils and human remains speak to elucidate the power of artefacts, value and ceremony. I use them as raw material. This collaboration with history and humanity creates a deeper understanding of myself and my place as a contemporary artist.

Working within the original architecture of this historic Gallo-Roman site I seek to open portals beyond the context of the museum with an intimacy to a past culture and reality. I attempt to capture the energy of these sacred artefacts and render them in a new light by making cyanotype prints, a type of visual representation that is simultaneously contemporary and timeless. It is my relationship with these historic artefacts that becomes a connective tissue to our common human history while honoring the aesthetic beauty created by our ancestors.”

Shiva Lynn Burgos

Invited for an artistic residency by Francisca Viudes, President of the Nice cultural association The (He)art for (He)art Program, these works are produced with the valuable participation of Betsy Green, an expert in 19th century photographic development techniques, the daily help of Bertrand Roussel, director of Musée Archéologique de Nice – Cimiez, the ongoing support of Robert Roux, deputy director of culture for the city of Nice and Thomas Aillagon, DG of culture for the city of Nice.

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POWER, PROTECTION, CURRENCY

Working widely with ‘alternative’ photographic techniques the artist Shiva Lynn Burgos revisits the historic process of cyanotyping. First used nearly 150 years ago, the cyanotype was formerly described as a shadowgraph by the pioneering and perhaps first known female photographer Anna Atkins to document her findings in the natural world, Photographs of British Algae :Cyanotype Impressions. The process involves painting a ferric salt solution onto watercolour paper. Placing the subject then exposing to sunlight or an ultra violet light source results in the brilliant Prussian blue hue. The spiritual and celestial colour provokes an ethereal and emotional attraction. The painterly, alchemical ritual involved in the production echoes her experiences imbedded with the Kwoma people of Papua New Guinea. The artist has been inducted into the Kiava clan where artmaking is connected to the ritual washing of objects to attract the energy of spirits and ancestors. The resulting series POWER, PROTECTION, CURRENCY is a device to capture the shadow energy of precious objects the artist was given or collected in Papua New Guinea. For example, the feather crown of her father Chief Colin, amulets, bones, shell money and pre-historic stone tools. The interactions between chance, intuition, and inductive logic are inherent. The objects themselves
are represented by a lack of colour and manifest as negative space. We are confronted by the absence of the object and therefore, the artist reminds us of the temporality and fragility of indigenous cultures themselves.

POWER 1 Chief Cowboy
POWER 2 Bone Necklac
POWER 3 Guria Clan
POWER 4 Crown Chief Colin

PROTECTION 1 Amulets
PROTECTION 2 Yam Mask
PROTECTION 3 Penis Gourd
PROTECTION 4 Relics

CURRENCY 1 Stone Tools
CURRENCY 2 Shell Money
CURRENCY 3 Net Tapestry
CURRENCY 4 Bilas