I am an Art historian and Associate Professor in the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University, where I teach Visual and Material Culture. My research focuses on Holocaust memory, how monuments renegotiate questions of identity and participation, and how art’s efficacy can be captured through audience reception. Currently, I explore what characterizes a ‘democratic monument’ in terms of content, design, coming into existence, and its being in the world, – and if, and if how, such monuments can make democracies more democratic.
I have published widely on Holocaust memory and on monuments of all shapes, even invisible ones such as Christoph Mayer’s Audio Walk Gusen or controversial ones such as Alfred Hrdlicka’s Memorial against War and Fascism. Most of my publications are available online.
Together with Brenda Schmahmann, University of Johannesburg, South Africa and Peter Bengtsen, Lund University, Sweden, I am the editor of Public Art Dialogue (Taylor & Francis).
The following articles can be seen as pilot studies to the book I am working on while being employed at the Institute for Futures Studies. It has the title Monuments for Democratic Activism, and will be published with Brill–Böhlau in 2027.
