Another rather obvious reason for the lack of Forum's local memory is the fact that
a lot of the material in which Forum is represented, such as pictures, old infor
mation and evaluation booklets, letters, audio and videos are still in the Boezem's
private collection and not available for a large public. Media will arguably only
have effect in memory cultures if they are read or viewed by a community and not
only by an individual.57 The documentary made in 1987, that should have served
as a documentation of ten years of Forum, has only been showed once, namely
during the exhibition of 2015 in the context of Boezem Co. Never has this video
been available to Forum participants, artists or people from Middelburg. There
fore, it has not been given the chance to circulate in the process of intermediality
of memory making.
Remembering Forum
We now seem to run into a contradiction. Forum's unique characteristics as an
art manifestation that attempted to establish a relation between the public and
the artist based on a dialogical nature, have shown to be worth remembering in
a local, national and international context. Yet, Forum does not seem to be re
membered properly in those contexts. Having established this, one is confronted
with the ultimate question of how to reintegrate the memory of Forum in these
contexts. Various ideas can be brought to the table. Antje von Graevenitz, for
example, shares the opinion that an exhibition should be made about art in the
Netherlands during the seventies. Within this national context and Zeitgeist, the
developments of Forum should take place as part of a greater whole.58
Ronald van Tienhoven suggests a re-enactment of Forum, again with Middel
burg as its stage. Van Tienhoven does not express any fears of falling in the trap of
repetition. Quite the reverse. In fact, a contemporary art manifestation that uses
the blueprint of Forum would never be the same as the original, since it deals with
other artistic, social, and political issues in society. Different artists and partici
pants would visit and gather to make art in situ, with the city of Middelburg as
their working space, creating works that do not resemble those produced by their
predecessors in the period 1977-1987.59
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The Art of Remembering Forum: the Local Memory
57 Erll, Literature, Film and the mediality of cultural memory, 395.
58 Antje Von Graevenitz, interviewed by Eva Langerak, April 13, 2018.
59 Ronald van Tienhoven, interviewed by Eva Langerak, April 20, 2018.
