In collaboration with Astrup Fearnley Museet, Feroz Mehmood Shah presents a lecture series on art and the place of art within our consciousness, in dialogue with philosophy and literature. The series takes individual works from the collection as its point of departure—on this occasion, Mohammed Sami’s painting Yesterday on Shelves (2023).

With the title Yesterday on Shelves, Sami establishes a tension between different conceptions of the past. On the one hand, what has been placed on the shelf may be considered historical, in the sense that it is behind us and no longer current. On the other hand, the temporal designation may point to what once was. Yesterday, the books stood on the shelf. Today, they may be lost. Shah will draw a connection to the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli, who in her novel Minor Detail reflects on the memory of collective trauma. As the protagonist moves through the landscape, an awareness emerges that the loss of memory is itself part of the trauma. Literature and the written word are among our most powerful symbols of memory. If the books on the shelf—along with the knowledge and traditions they represent—are in the process of vanishing, their outlines may remind us of what we had yesterday.

Admission is included with the entrance ticket to the museum. Free for members.

Feroz Mehmood Shah is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo, specializing in ethics, political philosophy, and the history of philosophy.

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