department of voids

EVERY OBJECT has its double.

In front of the glass wall is doubt and indeterminacy.
Behind the glass wall is the promise of expert, exclusive knowledge.

On display here is the Department of Voids, a collection around which a taxonomy of absence has grown. It started with empty transport cases for objects that had gone missing from a Copenhagen museum’s collection. Only the shell-like containers for the objects, carefully crafted and worn from much use, remained. All information about their contents’ identity and provenance had been lost.

The Department of Voids celebrates doubt. Firstly, by observing the ambivalence that exists within the space left by missing objects, a space that can best be understood as a set of probabilities open to our personal projections. Secondly, through asking what role doubt and the longing for certainty play in creating new bodies of knowledge.

 

 

‘Suppose we try to recall a forgotten name. The state of our consciousness is peculiar. There is a gap therein; but no mere gap. It is a gap that is intensely active.’
William James