The Flesh of History: Re-Enlivening the History of Textile Industries Through the Work of Kristina Müntzing

Swedish artist Kristina Müntzing physically engages with archives of textile industries through manipulating, enlarging, fragmenting and re-constructing (re-weaving) photographs that she finds, as well as creating performances that explore the carnal aspects of this history. In this way, she makes connections between such embodied understandings and the political struggles of the time, which continues in different manifestations yet today. In this article, I make use of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of the flesh to discuss how Müntzing’s work brings embodied understandings to the remnants of this history. I also introduce the reflections of Walter Benjamin on relating to history through re-enlivening the past in the present. As Müntzing invigorates the somatic aspects of this history through her works, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology adds flesh to Benjamin’s discussion about the importance of re-enlivening history – and retaining those remnants of the past that contain the seeds of resistance against oppression.