–She came in like a tornado and woke up sleepy Horten!  (said about Marie Høeg during her lifetime)

Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg were active as photographers in Horten from 1895 to 1903 and lived together their entire adult life. Photography was regarded as a respectable occupation for women, and upon completing their education in Finland they founded the photography studio Berg & Høeg. There, they took portraits of the citizens of Horten, in addition to landscape pictures and pictures of daily life in the city, which they then sold as postcards. Marie and Bolette were active in the struggle for equality and for the right of women to vote. Marie figured prominently both locally and nationally and founded Diskusjonsforeningen (“the Discussion Society”), where women met to engage in political debate. This had to be done in secret because politics at the time was the exclusive domain of men.

In the 1980s, two boxes labelled “private” were discovered out of the blue and donated to Leif Preus. The boxes turned out to contain glass negatives of Marie, Bolette, and their friends, where they stage themselves and challenge nineteenth-century ideals of womanhood and the stereotypical gender roles of the era. Their political activism for equality is also apparent in these photographs, whose imagery provides a stark and humorous contrast to their portraits of the middle-class citizens of Horten. And it is these private photographs that have subsequently been interpreted within a queer context.

This description of how most of us divide our lives into different spheres alludes to ideas of how we must, can, or should behave in various types of spaces and to what possibilities and restrictions these spaces may have. A central concept within queer theory is performativity, that is the notion that gender is socially constructed, something we do, and not something we are. The way we move, talk, or dress is usually in line with heteronormative expectations about “femininity” and “masculinity” and becomes a way to uphold heterosexuality and the two-gender model as something natural and taken for granted.

The private photographs of Marie, Bolette, and their friends were not meant for public viewing at the time and seem more playful than controversial to audiences of today. This says a good deal about how the boundaries of what is regarded as acceptable or conventional change according to the place, time, and space.

Queering Preus Museum (all over the place and space)

Preus Museum is Norway’s national museum of photography. The building was constructed around 1860 to serve as a navy storehouse. It has been listed as a cultural heritage building, meaning that physical changes to the building must meet strict requirements. As a museum, certain requirements must also be met in regard to safety, the indoor climate, and lighting in order to protect the photographs’ durability. Sverre Fehn’s exhibition architecture comes with its own possibilities and restrictions. The exhibition galleries are on the third floor, where you can learn about the history of photography and visit our temporary exhibitions. Preus Museum is a public space that should be accessible to everyone. The only private rooms, which are also publicly available, are the lavatories. The lavatories are the most obvious rooms in the building that refer to the two-gender model in practice.

What is a queer exhibition?
What is queer photography?
What is it that makes a museum queer?

We have collaborated with Karmaklubb* to provide you with a somewhat different experience than what you usually encounter at the museum. Karmaklubb* has an ongoing series called Queering the Museum Investigations, which examines museological practices from queer perspectives. The collaboration has consisted of workshops with subsequent discussions and concrete projects that are presented at the exhibition and that will continue throughout 2022. Karmaklubb* is run by its founder Tine Semb.

Karmaklubb* has for several years worked on a series of museal experiments and encounters, ‘Queering the Museum’, where the aim is to challengee — with a queer approach — the various hierarchies and authorities such institutions inhabits. Queering Preus Museum The work to queer the Preus Museum is in process and will appear in a variety og projects and contexts several projects and other contexts during 2022 and beyond.

Karmaklubb* is a nomadic queer club concept and conversational platform, hosting club evenings and nights, curatorial work, screenings, artist talks, panels, concerts, performances of various sorts, the art of drag, wine tastings, and sometimes food. Karmaklubb* is also an international research hub and a publishing house, the IGWTLI publishing. Karmaklubb* is a celebration of good things and is initiated by and run by Tine Semb.