Supervisor: Mari Hvattum
Duration: 2006-2010
The project Meanings of reconstructions is rooted in a desire to reconsider the basic question within the field of cultural heritage preservation: Why preserve?
Contrary to most considerations regarding this matter, the project takes reconstructions as its points of departure. Do they, and the reactions they bring about among preservationists, reveal what about a monument that matters most? Is material authenticity really as important as claimed by the institutions of cultural heritage? If a reconstruction could take on significances - understood as meanings as well as values - that sums up very close to the ones attached to the lost original, we may wonder if the importance of material authenticity maybe should be reconsidered.
The project searches for other sizes, maybe less noticed or insufficiently identified, that could contest authenticity's claim to qualify the evalution of preservational worthiness.