MF CASR Lunch with Fridtjof W. Leemhuis

The Two Madonnas: Loss as a Productive Force in Heritage Construction

Museums, libraries, and heritage institutions usually understand loss as a threat: something to be prevented through conservation, documentation, and preservation. I would like to introduce a different perspective. Drawing on Richard Terdiman’s concept of a modern “crisis of memory” and Andreas Reckwitz’s analysis of Verlustbearbeitung (loss processing), I argue that loss is not merely something heritage institutions respond to. Instead, loss is one of the conditions that produces modern heritage practices in the first place.

To explore this claim, I examine the history of the Hove Madonna, a fragmented thirteenth-century sculpture now housed at the University Museum of Bergen. From its nineteenth-century collection as a national heritage object to recent efforts to reconstruct and reinsert it into Hove Church, the Madonna reveals how loss generates new narratives, identities, and forms of preservation. Rather than disappearing, loss is continually negotiated, transformed, and made productive. The preliminary result in its long history is not one Madonna but two: a fragmented original and a reconstructed version that was completed in 2020, each performing different cultural work.

I suggest that museums and heritage institutions should be understood not only as guardians against loss, but also as sites where loss is actively processed, structured, and transformed into cultural meaning.