Creating Entangled Histories of Museum Collections: Isaac Julien’s Vagabondia (2002) and Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue (2013)

In this paper we will use Vagabondia and Grosse Fatigue as two contrasting case studies that explore the creation of entangled histories. The entanglements interesting us the most are those between moving images and museums, which develop in terms of representation and fictionalization, as well as of relationships between media – video installations and desktop cinema. While both Julien and Henrot are united in the way they open museums out as spaces for association, they create diverse positions and dispositions across the media involved. Specifically, we argue that while Julien gives us an entangled history that is relatively cinematic in its attitude towards association, Henrot’s entangled history is post-cinematic, adopting the interface of the computer.