TAMARA MARBL JOKA

Slettet / Erased

20 February - 30 March 2025

Photos by: Mats Linder

Tamara Marbl Joka explores her memories connected to the character of a specific place, conveying the ambivalence she feels toward it. The small instances of physical destruction she recalls have only deepened her sense of belonging. These elements form a unique language of the place. The place once existed, but little is known about it today. Few remember its name, and much of the information is gradually vanishing, just as intended.

Memory is the capacity to recall past events. Only individuals possess the ability to remember and reconstruct personal experiences and images from the past. Collective forgetting refers to how societies selectively remember and misremember. Memory is inherently personal; the notion that a collective can remember is a myth. American professors of psychology William Hirst and Charles B. Stone (2015)* describe forgeFng as examples of making pasts difficult to access.

If we examine the historical and philosophical roots of cancel culture, the main “cancellation ritual” was erasure from memory. Power dynamics shape the forma?on of identities, particularly through the destruction or silencing of targeted groups. The main idea is that those in positions of authority have the ability to control which narratives are remembered and which are forgotten. This suggests that societal and cultural influences shape individuals' desires and choices, thereby restricting their genuine autonomy.

*Hirst, W. & Stone, C.B. (2015). A Unified Approach to CollecAve Memory: Sociology, Psychology and the Extended Mind. In S. KaMago (Ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Memory Studies. Surrey: Ashgate.

Tamara Marbl Joka is an Oslo-based artist who was born in 1968 in Sarajevo, which at that time was a part of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Following the dissolution of the state in 1992, she immigrated to Norway. She consequently completed her formal training as a lecturer of Arts and Crafts at the University of South-Eastern Norway. Living in Oslo she got accepted into the BFA program at Oslo National Academy of the arts. Later, she graduated with a master's in Medium and Material-based art. During the time she was a MFA student, she was awarded Herbert Hofmann Prize in Munich, The Art Student Grant from The Relief Found for Visual Artists, BKH Norway and The Art Grant from The NK Southern Norway. She has exhibited in many group exhibitions and two solo exhibitions in the Nordic region. Her work is purchased by Die Danner-Stiftung (Munich), Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum in Trondheim, Kunst på arbeidsplassen – Oslo and Telemark Fylkeskommune.