LOOKING A — WAY

For decades in the European peripheries we have ignored considerations about our entanglement in the histories of colonialism and de-colonization that shaped the public discourse in both the Global South and the Global North.

The East Central European (ECE) and South East European (SEE) states have for the most part not participated directly in colonization efforts and have through an anti-imperialist stance during different implementations of state socialisms expressed a declarative anti-colonial position. Nevertheless the European peripheries historically subordinated to different empires until the beginning of the 20th century have been affected by the history of colonialism and coloniality. As a result they have been part of the global relations created through this history.

The works in the exhibition approach the question of othering and de-colonization both from the need to decolonize the countries that constitute what is called the ECE and SEE many of which were historically part of European empires that prospered through exploitation enabled by colonial expansion. It is also important to note that these peripheries have in different ways experienced othering by the West which was strikingly obvious in the 1990s during the dissolution of the former socialist system.

The artistic projects presented within the exhibition Looking a — way: Othering in/of the (semi)periphery further a comparative view of de-colonization in the East Central European and South East European countries. Works by Kvet Nguyen Christian Guerematchi and the artist duo Doplgenger engage with the less known anti-colonial histories of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Anna Dasović’s artistic research investigates the gradation of othering and its genocidal consequences in the case of the Yugoslav wars while Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán relate the political conditions that enabled the rise of Fascism with its lingering threat today. The works by Ferenc Gróf Daniela Ortiz Minna Henriksson Ľuboš Kotlár and Robert Gabris pursue the history of the development of racist ideology and its contemporaneity as an oppressive tool used against those designated as other.

The exhibition program will be further expanded by exhibition tours with curator Iva Kovač a masterclass on the politics of moving images by Doplgenger artist duo and a seminar focused on the academic and artistic research documenting the complex history of the peripheral European regions through a lens of decoloniality.
Z generáció: Koltay Dorottya Szonja

Pour en savoir +