MARIANNE BJØRNMYR // Cupaloy
Archivo LAB 2025
Limited Print Edition
—
MARIANNE BJØRNMYR
Cupaloy #1 , from the series Cupaloy
—
Inkjet print on 100% Cotton Rag Fine Art Paper
From an edition of 50, numbered on the reverse
Image size: 15 x 27 cm
Paper size: 24 x 30 cm
Unframed
Cupaloy is a long-term project exploring perception, trust, and the construction of historical narratives through photography and archival methodologies. Developed during Archivo LAB in 2025, it examines how images shape our understanding of history, particularly through chance, error, and speculative memory. The resulting photobook presents over 300 constructed photographs of events that nearly happened or could have altered world history due to accidents, mistakes, or human interference.
A newly invented classification system arranges these events into non-linear narratives, disrupting traditional historiography. Influenced by Derrida’s Archive Fever and inspired by the 1938 Time Capsule of Cupaloy, the project resists linear storytelling and reframes photographs as speculative documents rather than facts. Each image is rephotographed from archival sources, echoing how AI generates images from existing data. Repeated cast objects in concrete and gypsum mirror photography's logic of reproduction. Cupaloy challenges the authority of the archive, proposing a dynamic, open-ended counter-history built on misclassifications and overlooked possibilities.
