The Global Art Project

This is an excerpt from Selene Wendt's curatorial essay featured in The Sea is History. Should you wish to read more, please contact The Global Art Project or purchase a copy of the book. 

I felt strangely familiar with this place where everything seems to be magically interconnected; a place that resonates with rhizomatic intensity; a place where even the landscape seems to speak. I could almost hear the distant sound of rumba melded with the voices of writers and poets from across the Caribbean and Latin America. Édouard Glissant’s concept of échos monde, understood as the world of things resonating with each other, came vividly to life.  Glissant’s description of the Caribbean archipelago as illustrative of Relational thought, as addressed in Poetique de la Relation (Poetics of Relation), and the importance of archipelagic thinking, provides valuable insight into this city where the rivers meet the sea:

The Caribbean, as far as I’m concerned, may be held up as one of the places in the world where Relation presents itself most visibly, one of the explosive regions where it seems to be gathering strength. 

This has always been a place of encounter and connivance and, at the same time, a passageway toward the American continent. Compared to the Mediterranean, which is an inner sea surrounded by lands, a sea that concentrates (in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin antiquity and later in the emergence of Islam, imposing the thought of the One), the Caribbean is, in contrast, a sea that explodes the scattered lands into an arc. A sea that diffracts. Without necessarily inferring any advantage whatsoever to their situation, the reality of archipelagos in the Caribbean or the Pacific provides a natural illustration of the thought of Relation. 

What took place in the Caribbean, which could be summed up by the word créolization, approximates the ideaof relation for us as much as possible. It is not merely an encounter, a shock(in Segalen’s sense), a métissage, but a new and original dimension allowing each person to be there and elsewhere, rooted and open, lost in the mountains and free beneath the sea, in harmony and in errantry.[1] 

One could easily feel simultaneously lost in the mountains and free beneath the sea in Matanzas. If I could describe the duality of Matanzas in only one word, it would be baroque. From the ornate metalwork of doorways and windows, and the decorative tiles found throughout the city, to its busy, bustling streets, there is nothing simple or minimalistic about Matanzas. This is a place where past and present collide beautifully and unexpectedly, and where every corner somehow comes alive with magic realism. If Glissant was there with me in spirit, so were the likes of Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, and Reinaldo Arenas. It all made perfect sense. As Glissant points out in his brilliant analysis of oral traditions and storytelling, “And at stake once again in Brazilian and Hispanic-American literatures: the explosion of baroque expression, the whorls of time, the mingling of centuries and jungles, the same epic voice retying into the weft of the world, beyond any imposed solitude, exaction, or oppression.”[2]Glissant elaborates on this in Traité du Tout-Monde (Treatise on the Whole World). In a passage that bears relevance in relation to the prevalence of a baroque sensibility in Matanzas, Glissant explains:

The baroque is willingly the order (or disorder) of orality. This is encountered in the Americas in the beauty of cross-breeding and creolization, where the angels are Indians, the Madonna is black, the cathedrals like landscapes of stone, and this echoes the word of the storyteller, which also extends into the tropical night, accumulated, repeated. The storyteller is Creole, Quechua, Navajo, or Cajun. In the Americas, baroque is naturalized.[3]  

In other words, in the Americas, and in this case the Caribbean, a baroque sensibility is intrinsic to the surroundings. The importance of oral traditions, particularly in relation to indigenous traditions of storytelling corresponds beautifully with a comprehensive, inclusive worldview. Glissant elaborates on this in Poetics of Relation: “Clearly, one of the places engraved in Antillean memory is the circle drawn around the storyteller by the shadows of the night…His voice comes from beyond the seas, charged with the movement of those African countries present in their absence; it lingers in the night, which draws the trembling children into the womb.”[4]   

Édouard Glissant was well aware of the infinite ways in which storytelling, literature and poetry extend through time and place, and between cultures.  He also saw vital links between Cuban authors and their Barbadian and American counterparts, as eloquently expressed in Poetics of Relation: “So Alejo Carpentier and Faulkner are of the same mind, Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Lezama Lima go together, I recognize myself in Derek Walcott, we take delight in the coils of time in García Márquez’s century of solitude. The ruins of the Plantation have affected American cultures all around.”[5]It’s widely known that Glissant felt deeply connected to Cuba, and his ties to its artists and thinkers, such as Wifredo Lam and Agustín Cardenas, are legendary.Glissant truly understood the creative and cultural forces of Cuba. 

Returning once again to Glissant’s idea of being simultaneously “rooted and open, lost in the mountains and beneath the sea, in harmony and errantry”, other literary greats ranging from Aimé Césaire to Derek Walcott also come to mind. It all relates to what Glissant described as the world’s poetic force: “The world’s poetic force (its energy), kept alive within us, fastens itself by fleeting, delicate shivers, onto the rambling prescience of poetry in the depths of our being”.[6]  

There is something evocative about Matanzas and its rivers, as conveyed in the title Intermittent Rivers. The title emphasizes key aspects of a project that is intended to inspire meaningful transcultural collaborations, that aims to revive the local art community, and that places particular emphasis on cultural dialogues between Cuba and the United States. Intermittent Riverscould be perfectly summed up in Glissant’s words: “The seas are flowing in errantry like abandoned rivers”.[7]It’s time to look at this city where the rivers meet the sea through new eyes and to consider Matanzas’ historical past in relation to the present. 

Of course, Glissant was not alone in his vision of the Caribbean archipelago as something more culturally significant than simply a string of islands on a map. The numerous parallels between Édouard Glissant’s philosophy of “the entanglements of worldwide relation” and Stuart Hall’s scholarship, and how their interests and research intersected, as well as how they were both inspired by Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire, among others, are part of a distinct trajectory that mirrors what Hall described as “the syncretic character of Caribbean culture and the violent fractures and brutal ruptures of its history”.[8]

In Stuart Hall’s writings about cultural identity and the Caribbean, he stated:

Cultural identities are the points of identification, the unstable points of identification or suture, which are made, within the discourses of history and culture. Not an essence but a positioning.Hence, there is always a politics of identity, a politics of position, which has no absolute guarantee in an unproblematic, transcendental ’law of origin’.[9]

As a citation that I often return to in my research, I am interested in how this relates specifically tomany of the artists featured in Intermittent Rivers, such as Manthia Diawara, Julie Mehretu, Olu Oguibe, and Cosmo Whyte, to name only a few. I would venture to say that Intermittent Rivers involves a consciousde-positioning, in the sense that so many of the participating artists are in a constant state movement between more than one place. 

The importance of a conscious de-positioning certainly relates to Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and as the Artistic Director and initiator of Intermittent Rivers, the project is best understood within the specific framework of her artistic practice. One work in particular, Rooted, 2012, evokes the specificity of place that is so integral to her practice and Intermittent Rivers as a whole. When she read the Spanish translation of Amos Tutuola’s book The Palm-Wine Drinkardas a young girl in Matanzas, the story rooted itself in her memory.  Drawing on the West African Yoruba oral folktale tradition, Amos Tutuola’s story describes the fantastic, nightmarish odyssey of a palm-wine drinker. 

Campos-Pons describes the story conveyed in Rooted, 2012, as part African legend and part Campos-Pons fairytale.Walter Benjamin’s observations about storytelling read as an apt description of her approach. Benjamin writes: “All great storytellers have in common the freedom with which they move up and down the rungs of their experience as on a ladder”.[10]Throughout her career, Campos-Pons has moved back and forth, up and down, between here and there, constantly navigating the landscapes of her mind that are equally rooted in Cuba and The United States.She once described herself as a young girl who found freedom in books, and her vivid description speaks of the history, the architecture, and the spirit of Matanzas, which serves as a perfect introduction to Intermittent Rivers:

My sensibilities lie between the complex and luxurious grandeur of Cuban architecture, the voluptuousness of Cuban curvilinear furniture, beautiful women and suave men walking in the hustle and bustle of the city, as contrasted to the austerity and rigor of the blue of the ocean horizon on a calm day, or the flatness and rationality of a sugar cane field. As a girl I wandered in the sugar cane fields not knowing yet I was walking within a grid, but I loved the pattern and simplicity of the walls of delicately moving green sugarcane all around me, and the straight, red dusty path I was walking on. This was the place where I found relief reading Rilke, Thomas Mann, Chinua Achebe and Kant.[11]

Through the years, Campos-Pons has been dedicated to the dissolution of geopolitical divides between Cuba and The United States. In general terms, her socially engaged practice is centered around an ongoing commitment to stimulating positive cultural exchange through interventions and dialogues that extend beyond her own practice. Her belief in the power of art to create societal change is evident with Intermittent Rivers.In keeping with the conceptual framework of the 13thHavana Biennial, Intermittent Riversattempts to break down barriers between art and life, public and private, art world elite and general public, with the goal of creating lasting change. Naturally, the prospect of creating such an ambitious project asan official part of the 13thHavana Biennial demanded paying careful attention to the social and cultural factors that make Matanzas unique, including its vibrant and rich history. Sensitivity to local challenges and needs has played an important role in the selection process of considering which international artists would be able to create projects that would truly resonate in Matanzas and within the arts community in particular. 

As a native of Matanzas, who divides her time equally between Cuba and The United States, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons was in a unique position to find innovative ways to bridge the gap between Cuba and the rest of the world. As such, I feel honored to have been selected to be part of her curatorial team, along with Octavio Zaya and Salah M. Hassan.  I sincerely hope that the impact will extend beyond the parameters of the biennial itself, and create a long-lasting impact on the local art community. Intermittent Riversoffers an unprecedented opportunity to showcase the work of legendary local artists such as Ramon Pacheco and Augustín Drake, and the artist-run book collective Ediciones Vigia, along with younger, emerging artists such as Adversy Alonso, Adriana Pérez and Solomon, featured with artists from around the world, resulting in meaningful cross-cultural collaborations and dialogues. 

It seems kismet that the theme of this year’s Havana Biennial is La Construccion de lo Posible(The construction of the possible). The title reminds me of the Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas who so famously stated, “Solo hay un lugar para vivir – el imposible” (There is only one place to live – the impossible).  Once again, this brings me back to Glissant, who spoke so eloquently about the powerful cry of poetry: “This is a cry, quite simply a cry. Of attainable Utopia. If the cry is repeated by some and by all, it will become speech. Common song. The cry and the speech take turns to attain the possible, and also what we have always believed to be the impossible, of our countries”.[12]

[1]Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of RelationTranslated by Betsy Wing. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, (1997) pp. 33-34

[2]Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of RelationTranslated by Betsy Wing. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, (1997) p. 35

[3]Glissant, Édouard. Traité du Tout-Monde. Éditions Gallimard, Paris (1997). P. 116. My own translation.

[4]Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of RelationTranslated by Betsy Wing. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, (1997) p. 39

[5]Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of RelationTranslated by Betsy Wing. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, (1997) pp. 71-72

[6]Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of RelationTranslated by Betsy Wing. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, (1997) p. 159

[7]Glissant, Édouard. Traité du Tout-Monde. Éditions Gallimard, Paris (1997). P. 140. My own translation. Errantry is defined by Glissant as the desire to og against the root. 

[8]Hall, Stuart with Schwarz, Bill. Familiar Stranger. Penguin Random House, London. 2017. p. 248

[9]Hall, Stuart. ’Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ from ’Identity: Community, Culture & Difference’ Edited by Johnathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd. 2003) p. 226

[10]Benjamin, Walter ’The Storyteller’ in idem, Illuminations (London. Pimlico 1999) pp. 100-101

[11]Cited from a conversation between Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and myself in July, 2011. 

[12]Glissant, Édouard. Traité du Tout-Monde. Éditions Gallimard, Paris (1997). P. 233. My own translation.

As an exhibition featuring artists who are dedicated to visual activism and the power of collective resistance it seems fitting to begin with Teresa Margolles' work. The collaborative textile work Dylegued / Entierro / Burial (2013) featured in A Sheet of Paper Can Become a Knife commemorates a native Kuna boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen Lopez, who was brutally murdered in Panama City. The work was created in collaboration with his family members in memory of his tragic death, and was executed using the traditional mola embroidery technique on fabric permeated with blood from the body of a woman assassinated in Panama City. This work is part of an entire body of work that relates to gender violence in Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and the United States. Similarly, for Tela Bordada (2012) Margolles collaborated with a group of women from Sololá, Guatemala who implement embroidery to protest violence against women. Sitting together in a circle, the women stitched traditional Mayan symbols in vibrant colors onto a stained cloth. The cloth was taken from the morgue where it was stained with the blood of a woman who had been murdered in Guatemala City. In contrast to the gravity of such issues, the exquisitely embroidered fabric relays a sense of hope in the brightly colored symbols such as the sun and the moon, birds, butterflies, and flowers.

These collaborative textile works are a logical continuation of Teresa Margolles’ longtime exploration of violence. For each new collaborative textile she invited embroiderers to create patterns on bloodstained fabric as a way to trigger a conversation about the violence and social problems that plague their respective communities. As recounted in the video documentary Opening Paths to Social Justice, the textile from Guatemala memorializes the sorrows and struggles of Mayan women members of ADEMKAN Asociación de Desarrollo de la Mujer K’ak’a Na’oj from Sololá, situated along the shore of Lake Atitlan. Focusing on domestic violence, the embroiderers speak out against the prevalence of violence in Guatemala and the sexual abuses and murders that mark their lives. They discuss the importance of giving voice to women everywhere in an ongoing search for peace and dignity, emphasizing the importance of working together to create change.

The work created in Mexico, sewn by Rarámuri (Tarahumara) living on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, addresses the stigmatization of indigenous women in regards to how they dress and the language they speak. The embroiderers also address the assassinations of Rarámuri living in the mountains, and the attempted cover-up by authorities that falsely claim that the victims committed suicide due to hunger. The textile created in Brazil relates to the unresolved mystery surrounding the 1970 murder of an eight-year-old girl on Pina Beach in Recife, whose body was never identified. To this day she is only known as Menina sem nome (the nameless girl). The work of embroiderers from Managua, Nicaragua addresses the disastrous effects of the Contra war in Nicaragua in the 1980s, as an entire generation continues to suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction, and daily violence. Finally, the textile completed in Harlem, New York expresses the embroiderers’ concerns regarding police brutality against African-Americans today, and the increasing number of deaths that result from police brutality. The work was created on a fabric imprinted by the spot on Staten Island where Eric Garner died while being placed under arrest as a result of being put in a chokehold. Similar to the other works, this textile expresses the embroiderers’ struggle for justice and a shared hope for better social conditions in their community.

Zanele Muholi’s iconic portraits have become synonymous with black, African, female, transgender and queer empowerment, and her ongoing series Somnyama Ngonyama / Hail the Dark Lioness is no exception. With this series of work she integrates classical depictions of femininity, the mechanics of fashion photography, and ethnographic imagery to address identity politics from a critical perspective that challenges what Kobena Mercer refers to as “the oppressive regimes of myth and stereotype”. In the true spirit of Frantz Fanon, this body of work confirms that she is an activist that questions modes of representation. "I’m reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other. My reality is that I do not mimic being black; it is my skin, and the experience of being black is deeply entrenched in me. Just like our ancestors, we live as black people 365 days a year, and we should speak without fear." Taken in various locations throughout Europe, North America and Africa, each portrait raises critical questions about social justice, human rights, and contested representations of the black body. Befittingly, the ongoing series will only reach completion once 365 photographs are taken. One of the featured portraits occupies a central position in the space in recognition of Muholi’s interventions to the photographic archive. A selection of photographs from the Somnyama Ngonyama is also presented on a nearby screen, giving a more complete sense of this body of work. 

Through continued investigation of different archetypes and personas Zanele Muholi’s self-portraits suggest visual antidotes for various cultural biases and stereotypes. Inspired by various photographers including Renee Cox who is also known for relentless explorations of identity, the nature of representation through self-portraiture, and playing multiple roles, Muholi takes control of the entire narrative, both behind and in front of the camera. Her photographs involve a clever reversal of history as she appropriates what is useful to her, often turning it inside out and backwards, to magnify how objects function symbolically in the social milieu. 

The formal range and variety of her photographs is astounding, and Muholi succeeds in addressing a wide range of related topics without ever being redundant. Whether the self-portraits incorporate scouring sponges, discarded bicycle tires, a worn bed sheet, or a crown of braids, Muholi is chameleonesque as the roles adopted and issues addressed change from photograph to photograph. The images in Somnyama Ngonyama play with, tease, and challenge notions of visibility and invisibility. Muholi captures our full and undivided attention through her powerful presence and reversal of the gaze.  One cannot help but linger on the seemingly small everyday details, the trappings of domesticity that are magically transformed into sartorial exclamation points that speak on behalf of women everywhere, and first and foremost on behalf of black, African, queer empowerment.
Naiza Khan’s galvanized steel armor works hover in an ambiguous space between aggression and seduction. We are confronted with the inherent contradiction of objects that appear both ominous and fragile at the same time. This ambiguity encourages us to search beneath the surface for the deeper implications of the work. There is an unsettling quality to the steel bodices, skirts, and dresses that somehow seems to suggest the exact moment when seduction becomes aggression. Whether they evoke personal experience or collective memory, attraction or repulsion, are some of the many contradictions that the work encourages us to question.

Naiza Khan’s galvanized steel armor works hover in an ambiguous space between aggression and seduction. We are confronted with the inherent contradiction of objects that appear both ominous and fragile at the same time. This ambiguity encourages us to search beneath the surface for the deeper implications of the work. There is an unsettling quality to the steel bodices, skirts, and dresses that somehow seems to suggest the exact moment when seduction becomes aggression. Whether they evoke personal experience or collective memory, attraction or repulsion, are some of the many contradictions that the work encourages us to question.

These sculptures reflect a continuation of Naiza Khan’s ongoing formal and conceptual investigation of the female body. She has produced a major body of work, in the form of photography, large-scale drawings and watercolors, which explores the sensuality of the female body and the implications of its presence or absence, its visibility or invisibility. The three works featured in the exhibition, Armour Suit for Rani of Jhansi, Armour Skirt I, and Cage Corset, are symbols of empowerment that also question typical notions of femininity by creating alternative narratives through allegory. Each piece of attire also alludes to the construction of multiple personae as a strategy, and as a way to extend the body beyond its static self. These artworks are situated in a paradoxical space in between, where the contours of the feminine body are clearly delineated but ultimately invisible as a true form. Femininity is thereby conveyed through the shape of an absent body, which stands in sharp contrast to the chosen medium of the garments—galvanized steel. There is a sense of sensuality conveyed in the intimacy of these garments that would ostensibly be worn over bare skin. Yet it is difficult to determine what is more important to the work—the visible or the invisible, what is represented or what is only suggested. As symbols of empowerment these steel garments also bring to mind the heroism of female warriors, from Joan of Arc to the Rani of Jhansi, and the shining armor that has protected them through the ages.

It’s no coincidence that one of the sculptures pays homage to the queen of Jhansi in Northern India. She was one of the leading figures of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and became a symbol for Indian resistance in the face of British colonial rule. There’s no ambiguity there, but Khan’s blue-feathered steel suit for the Rani of Jhansi still leaves us with more questions than answers. In the end we have to imagine what is found in the space between visibility and invisibility, absence and presence, power and submission. 

Newsha Tavakolian’s Out of Hiding conveys the reality of women who partake in violence in their role as FARC guerrilla warriors in the Cauca jungle of Colombia. Tavakolian’s uncomfortably intimate photographs provide a glimpse into the complexity of their lives and encourage us to consider the personal side of their situation and the motivations behind their choice to become fighters. Her interest in photographing women fighters was inspired by reading Nobel-laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s book The Unwomanly Face of War, which recounts the stories of Russian women who fought during the second world war. In speaking about her photographs of the female FARC guerrillas Tavakolian explains, “I think we all think about these women as a people who kill others but at the same time, they are survivors.”

Out of Hiding captures the female guerrilla fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as they prepare to leave the jungle and integrate into society. Through her visit to the FARC guerrillas Tavakolian was interested in creating a nuanced picture of the dire circumstances that led some of these women to become fighters. She also hoped to better understand some of the problems they are likely to face as they return to Colombian society. Tavakolian’s photographs, presented along with testimonies from the women she met, provide a behind the scenes glimpse into the lives of these women.

Tavakolian’s portraits paint a nuanced picture of their daily lives that also helps contribute to a deeper understanding of some of the social circumstances that led to them becoming FARC guerrilla fighters in the first place. As we look at the expressions and poses of these women we witness signs of exhaustion, vulnerability, and anxiety that one doesn’t necessarily associate with guerrilla warriors. Interestingly, there are no signs of anger in their faces, and there appears to be no immediate danger hiding in the shadows. Nevertheless, these are not romanticized images of erstwhile terrorists in the jungle. These photographs convey the mundane details of everyday life and the personal details of their situation.  Tavakolian succeeds in capturing our attention, and if it feels utterly uncomfortable to observe where these guerilla fighters rest, sleep, do their laundry, wash their hair, converse, drink coffee, or attend group meetings, one should take the time to read their testimonies that relay the harsh realities of their social and economic situation.

For over sixty years the late David Goldblatt was dedicated to documenting South Africa’s racial divide during some of its most turbulent years, and became known as one of the world’s foremost documentary photographers. I first met David Goldblatt in 2000 while working on the exhibition Rhizomes of Memory: Three South African Photographers, curated by Gavin Jantjes for Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Norway. His photographs changed how I looked at documentary photography ever since and remain permanently imbedded in my mind’s eye. Through the years he transformed the wounds of racial injustice into captivating photographs that demand our full and undivided attention. The importance of South African photography and Goldblatt’s singular contribution to its development was beautifully conveyed by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu in his preface to the Rhizomes of Memory catalogue, “Photography is a wonderful tool. Photographers who documented apartheid’s history made us choose sides. These photographs are poetic narratives of the worlds of yesterday, today and tomorrow. The scope of their vision includes a passionate concern for people and it brings images into our lives whose haunting beauty will linger for years”.  

In David Goldblatt’s own words, “During those years my prime concern was with values – what did we value in South Africa, how did we get to those values and how did we express those values. I was very interested in the events that were taking place in the country as a citizen but, as a photographer, I’m not particularly interested, and I wasn’t then, in photographing the moment that something happens. I’m interested in the conditions that give rise to events.”

The single photograph featured in A Sheet of Paper Can Become a Knife is a portrait of Lawrence Matjee, whose injuries are the result of a police arrest: Matjee was forcibly dragged from his home, by his feet, dislocating his arms in the process. Atrocities such as these were a common occurrence in South Africa during the brutal years that preceded the fall of apartheid. Among his most iconic works, this photograph is included as a special homage to David Goldblatt who was a founding member of the Market Photo Workshop, and who passed away earlier this year.

Among the most mesmerizing works in the exhibition is Oscar Muñoz’s video Distopia. As an incurable bibliophile I was immediately captivated by this text-based work that appeared to be some kind of a poetic intervention. In fact, the video is composed of passages from George Orwell’s 1984 printed with black toner on wet sheets of paper, which are then submerged in the water. One by one, the letters slowly come off the paper, distorting the original text and making it completely impossible to read. The process is rather magical—straight out of a world where books come to life and the boundaries between text and image, fiction and reality are completely erased. Of course, the message is far more sinister. The disintegration of the text refers directly to the central themes of the novel—censorship and surveillance. The work also references the novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, who works in the Ministry of Truth where he is responsible for rewriting historical documents and altering photographs before he incinerates the original documents and photos.

As part of the process Muñoz dips page after page of typed text into a liquid bath that slowly lifts the letters from the page making the text illegible. So, while the illegible words from the Spanish translation disappear in front of our eyes, Muñoz is essentially playing the role of Winston Smith. Suddenly, the reference to the book seems almost secondary. We all know the storyline of 1984 which describes a future controlled by Big Brother, and where workers in the Ministry of Truth delete contradictory histories and redundant words from the dictionary to create a pure efficient language: Newspeak. Instead of burning texts to ash, Muñoz submerges them in liquid, in a gesture almost like a reverse typewriter that sets the letters free. It’s certainly a poetic gesture, but considered within the wider framework of Muñoz’s work, there seems to be a subtext that relates to more pressing issues such as historical revisionism, fake news, and the ever-increasing threats of surveillance and censorship in our daily lives. 

Amar Kanwar’s Letter 5 (2017) is featured as an interval for quiet reflection. The work is comprised of six small projections that cast flickering images onto small sheets of handmade white paper that float delicately away from the wall. As viewers, we are inspired to decipher the visual poetry of short passages of text coupled with enigmatic black and white images that include a crow perching on a tree branch, a leaf caught by the wind, and a pattern of clouds floating in the sky

Letter 5 is part of Kanwar’s eponymous project, Letters, consisting of seven different works (Letter 1 to 7). Kanwar’s Letters relate directly to his 2017 film, Such a Morning, in which a renowned mathematician retires, cuts his career short unexpectedly, and retreats to the wilderness to live in an abandoned train carriage. He then proceeds to black out all the windows and seals himself into a chamber of darkness. With no spoken narrative, intermittent titles offer clues to a dramatic sensory journey into a new plane of emotional resonance between the self and the world around. Over time, the professor records his epiphanies and hallucinations in an almanac of the dark, an examination of 49 types of darkness that finally emerges as a series of letters. The feature length film begins with an early morning eclipse, which causes panic among a flock of crows that leave the city in search of shelter. These are the birds that reappear in Letters, where they are seen along with excerpts from the professor’s almanac.

Amar Kanwar describes Such a Morning as a modern parable about two people’s quiet engagement with truth. Searching for a way to comprehend the difficult times we are living in, Kanwar asks “What is it that lies beyond, when all arguments are done with? How to reconfigure and respond again? Such a Morning unlocks a metaphysical response to our contemporary reality as it navigates multiple hallucinations between speech and silence, fear and freedom, democracy and fascism.” As part of his film Kanwar conceived a narrative that continues beyond the film - the professor continues to write his letters - towards a research project with diverse artistic, pedagogic, metaphysical and political collaborations, to be shared as the project travels and gathers experience. The train coach built for the film remains in Delhi, a memorial for the teacher who refused to conform, who stepped off the tracks and wandered into the wild.

Returning to more direct themes of political oppression, the abuse of power, dictatorship, and military rule brings us to the work of FX Harsono, who has been an active critic of Indonesian politics, culture, and society since his early student days in the seventies. He often weaves references to his own family history into installations that expose Indonesia’s tumultuous history, paying special attention to the systematic discrimination of minorities. This melding of personal and political themes is particularly evident in his most recent works, as is seen in Gazing on Collective Memory (2016) featured in the exhibition.

FX Harsono was one of the founding members of Indonesia’s New Art Movement, which emphasized an experimental, conceptual approach, the use of everyday materials, and engagement with social and political issues. These are artistic methods that he has adhered to ever since. During the Suharto regime (1967-98), Harsono implemented installation and performance works as a form of artistic activism against an oppressive government. The fall of the regime in 1998, which triggered rioting and widespread violence, mainly against Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority, prompted a more introspective shift in Harsono’s artistic practice. This involved an in-depth investigation of his family history and a critical questioning about the position of minorities in society, with particular emphasis on his own Chinese-Indonesian community. The recovery of buried or repressed histories, cultures, and identities – and the role that the artists can play both in terms of recalling these histories as well as implementing art as a form of activism are integral to his work.

Since 2010, FX Harsono has focused on raising awareness about the prevalence of mass graves in Indonesia in the aftermath of World War II. More specifically, his works document the events, people, and circumstances surrounding the massacres committed against Indonesians of Chinese-descent throughout Java from 1947 to 1949. Through the years, his work has become a powerful means of sharing the otherwise untold stories of violent, traumatic episodes which have affected thousands of Indonesian lives. He continues to excavate stories of trauma from the minefield of Indonesian collective memory, coupling the severity of the themes with a visual vocabulary that comes across as a form of non-violent protest. The understated beauty of Gazing on Collective Memory, with its collection of found objects, which includes electric candles, family photographs, and porcelain cups, creates a serene shrine-like environment that is a perfect site for critical reflection about Indonesia’s tumultuous history.

A disquietingly direct approach is witnessed in the work of Regina José Galindo, whose performances often involve dangerous situations that could potentially put her life at risk. Throughout her work she explores topics of discrimination, violence, and other forms of abuse that are prevalent throughout contemporary society, placing particular emphasis on Guatemala. Among Galindo’s highly unsettling works, her site-specific performance work La Tierra speaks effectively about the transgressions of the former dictator and president of Guatemala José Efraín Ríos Montt. In 2013 he was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.  More specifically, he was found guilty of trying to exterminate the Ixil ethnic group, a Mayan Indian community whose villages were eradicated by his forces. Regina José Galindo’s video is a haunting interpretation of the atrocities recounted during his trial.

Tierra begins with Galindo standing alone and naked in a grassy meadow where her space is invaded by a bulldozer. Danger and aggression are clearly conveyed as the bulldozer comes closer and closer to dig a hole around Galindo, cutting deeper and deeper into the earth until she is left all alone on a small island of mud and grass. As the film progresses the angle of the camera and the zoom of the lens make the bulldozer seem evermore ominous, and close-ups emphasize the precariousness of the situation. At times it seems that Galindo will be struck down by the bulldozer’s claw. The atrocities of Guatemala’s history are chillingly evoked through a scarring of the earth. Galindo alludes to the incident in which innocent citizens were murdered and subsequently buried in a mass grave. The stark contrast between the bulk of the bulldozer and Galindo’s small, vulnerable body captures the powerlessness of people who suffer under oppressive regimes, while the chasm that grows around her evokes a sense of despair and alienation that results from political oppression and violence in general.

Cildo Meireles’ Banknote Project was first conceived in 1970 as part of his Insertions into Ideological Circuits project that was featured in an exhibition held at The Museum of Modern Art in New York entitled Information. The Banknote Project explored the circulation and exchange of goods, and questioned the power of wealth and information as manifestations of dominant ideologies. His artistic intervention involved stamping subversive messages onto Brazilian banknotes and US dollar bills before returning them into normal circulation. The messages, appearing in both English and Portuguese, included various slogans that called for democracy and political freedom. Among the most famous were the bills stamped with the words Quem Matou Herzog? (Who Killed Herzog?), referring to the journalist Vladimir Herzog who was killed in October 1975 while under police custody. In 2013, following the abduction and murder of Amarildo de Souza by members of the UPP (Police Pacification Unit) during a raid of the Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Meireles initiated another banknote intervention featuring the messages Cadê o Amarildo? (Where is Amarildo?), and O que aconteceu com Amarildo? (What happened to Amarildo?).

The continued importance of Cildo Meireles’ banknote project cannot be understated. In fact, the original project has inspired numerous artistic interventions through the years.  This was recently made shockingly clear in the aftermath of councilwoman and human rights activist Marielle Franco’s tragic death. As the only black woman among Rio’s 51 city council members, her voice and role was quite significant. Franco had spoken out fiercely against increased militarization and the prevalence of police killings in Brazilian favelas, particularly in Rio de Janeiro where she was from. Shortly following her assassination on March 14, 2018 Brazilian banknotes began popping up around Rio de Janeiro stamped with the slogan Quem Matou Marielle Franco? (Who Killed Marielle Franco?). The intervention effectively questioned the suspicious circumstances of Marielle Franco’s death and emphasized the haunting similarity to the 1975 killing of Vladimir Herzog, while also paying homage to Cildo Meireles.

A short excerpt from an interview with Cildo Meireles for Revista Carbono emphasizes the timelessness of the Banknote Project, “It’s a work about production, distribution, and control of information. This is the core of the work…Clearly Insertions has the capacity to give voice to the individual within the macro-structure, something that I have always found interesting…the project was and is dedicated to amplifying a question that is on the lips and minds of the people…Yes, people are still being killed by the same people, for the same reasons and in the same places. This is the absurdity of Brazil, its hypocrisy.” 

Echoing the perfectly measured words of Mahmoud Darwish when he stated that every beautiful poem is an act of resistance, the artworks featured in A Sheet of Paper Can Become a Knife are all beautiful acts of resistance. Through these works the participating artists give voice to millions of others whose stories need to be heard. We can only hope that the harsh lessons of these stories will eventually be learned.

If the pleasure of collecting is conveyed repeatedly on the pages of Orhan Pamuk’s books, it reaches its pinnacle in The Museum of Innocence where the act of collecting objects and the process of writing are inextricably bound. Nowhere are the tangible results of Pamuk’s passion for collecting more evident than in the vitrines found in his museum—29 of which are on display in The Art of Fiction. The exhibition also features a selection of Pamuk’s original notebooks filled with words and images, which serves to emphasize the importance of his role as a visual artist. In fact, he dreamed of becoming an artist until the age of 23 when “a screw fell loose” and he decided to become an author. Although Pamuk went on to become an award winning author the artist inside him never died. When I visited him on The Prince Islands, where he was busy writing a new novel, he proudly showed me the perfect antidote against writer’s block. He keeps a full artist’s supply of colored pens and pencils readily available so that he can tap into the world of images whenever he feels the need. His notebooks are integral to his work and within this exhibition they function as a powerful visual reminder that images and words are of equal importance to Pamuk.

On its most basic level The Museum of Innocence is a classic tale of impossible love reminiscent of Layla and Majnun or Romeo and Juliet. This is the story of Kemal who falls so deeply in love with Füsun that he becomes obsessed with collecting objects that remind him of the time they spent together before fate would tear them apart—not only once but twice. These objects are spun into a nostalgic and sentimental story that also paints a vivid picture of Istanbul from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

As viewers, we are invited to consider the symbolism of real objects that relate to a fiction. As readers, we are confronted with reality through intermittent references to Orhan Pamuk and the actual museum that he would later create to house the objects that Kemal collects. This playful balance between fiction and reality—so typical of Orhan Pamuk’s literary style—teases our understanding of both.  Neither a book about a museum, nor a museum about a book, they are two sides of the same story; one told through words, the other expressed through objects. As such, an epic tale of love, an ode to Istanbul, and an unprecedented work of art come together to reveal the full potential of the relationship between words and images, literature and art.

The magic of objects is the essential underlying theme throughout, best described by Orhan Pamuk in his own museum catalogue The Innocence of Objects.  The following passage, which corresponds to vitrine 53—An Indignant and Broken Heart is of No Use to Anyone, illuminates the conceptual underpinnings of the novel and the museum: 

The Museum of Innocence has been made by those who believe in the magic of objects. We have been inspired by Kemal’s belief in objects, yet unlike the passionate collector, we are not moved by the fetishist’s desire to possess things, but rather by the wish to know the objects’ secrets. We carry in our own hearts the very same hope that we see emanating from the cinema crowd’s gaze this autumn evening. As our soul focuses on objects, we can feel in our broken hearts that the whole world is one, and we come to accept our own sufferings. What makes this acceptance possible is enshrined in the cinemagoers’ eyes. It isn’t necessarily in the soda bottle that Kemal kept by his bedside for years because Füsun once touched her lips to it or the broken porcelain heart. We turn instead to the crowd in the background, to the other world, to a place outside of Time—to you. 

In describing his fascination with the secret meaning of objects, Pamuk reveals the biggest secret of all—he isn’t really interested in collecting itself. He is interested in the magic of objects.  Orhan Pamuk consistently plays with our perceptions in much the same way as Italo Calvino or Jorge Luis Borges, and succeeds in creating a captivating fictional world that is somehow always just beyond our grasp. It’s as if Istanbul itself had been inspired by Calvino’s Invisible Cities while the “poetic allure” of its streets and alleys had been mapped out in Borges’ Labyrinths. It’s all about the magic that turns the objects Pamuk collects into literature and into art.

Countless journalists have begged the question of where Orhan Pamuk’s story ends and were Kemal’s story begins; they want to know if The Museum of Innocence is autobiographical. The novel certainly conveys the kind of bittersweet melancholy that one imagines could only be written by someone who has suffered the agony of heartbreak, and the parallels between the protagonist and the author are abundant—yet there is so much more to it. Perhaps most importantly, where does Istanbul’s story end and Pamuk’s story begin, and where does Pamuk’s story end and our own story begin?

Orhan Pamuk clearly enjoys playing with our perceptions, but he is not one to leave his readers completely in the dark. Throughout his authorship he provides clues that provide additional layers of meaning for the attentive reader. This includes phrases, passages, and themes that reappear from book to book, references to his sources of literary inspiration, and details that suggest how the narrative might unfold. For instance, in chapter 12—Kissing on the Lips Kemal professes, “Even then I sensed this room mysterious with old objects and the joy of our kisses would be at the core of my imagination for the rest of my life.”  Blending past with present, and also referencing the future, Pamuk sheds light on the magic of objects that defines the entire story: 

My mother’s accumulated old furniture, the boxes, the stopped clocks, the pots and pans, the linoleum covering the floor, the smell of dust and rust had already merged with the shadows in the room to create a little paradise of the spirit in which my mind could wander.   

When Orhan Pamuk describes the wanderings of Kemal’s mind we are transported to a wondrous place where the likes of Proust, Baudelaire, Balzac and Flaubert are ever present. As Kemal peers into the bathroom mirror in chapter 49—I Was Going to Ask Her to Marry Me a female singer’s voice drifts into him through the window and provides him solace, “It’s love, it’s love, the reason for everything in the universe”.  The passage is part of a pivotal episode in the story:

I thus lived through one of my life’s most profoundly spiritual moments standing in front of the bathroom mirror; the universe was one, and one with all inside it. It wasn’t just all the objects in the world—the mirror in front of me, the plate of cherries, the bathroom’s bolt (which I display here), and Füsun’s hairpin (which I thankfully noticed and dropped into my pocket)—all humanity was one, too. To understand the meaning of this life, one first had to be compelled to see this unity by the force of love. 

As Kemal becomes increasingly obsessed with Füsun, torturously vacillating between deep anguish and bliss, his idealized vision of love brings a whole host of epically disillusioned protagonists to mind, ranging from Emma in Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary to Florentino in Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. The more time I spend considering each chapter in a book that is also a museum, the more I see the truth in Pamuk’s words, “Of course—as books were always telling us—everything was connected to everything else.”   It is worth mentioning that the “fake” Jenny Colon bag, which plays an important role in the story, is a reference to the Romantic poet Gérard de Nerval whose love was Jenny Colon. This is cited in chapter 33—Vulgar Distractions where Kemal professes:

Years later, when I took refuge in books, I found, in a work by Gérard de Nerval, the best expression of the crude dullness I was feeling at the time. After understanding that he has lost forever the love of his life, the poet, whose heartbreak eventually leads him to hang himself, writes somewhere in his Aurélia that life has left him with nothing but “vulgar distractions”.  

We can’t help but feel sorry for Kemal, and at this stage in the story will probably start wondering what will become of him in the end. Fortunately, he does manage to find relief in the objects that remind him of Füsun. Attentive museumgoers will notice that there is no vitrine for this particular chapter—as of yet. It seems appropriate in a novel that highlights innocence that there are no objects to accompany the notion of vulgarity, but Pamuk might not leave this vitrine unfinished. He has already hinted that if he were to complete this vitrine the objects would relate to “the hideous neighborhoods of ugly apartment blocks, depots, little factories, and dumping grounds.”  And, I would imagine, “the pain of love no longer felt unbearable.”  

In the continuous shift between fiction and reality, between the ongoing narrative and references to the museum, Pamuk switches effortlessly from passages written in the voice of the protagonist, to speaking directly to the reader as narrator, changing roles when we least expect it. This is particularly evident in chapter 17—My Whole Life Depends on You Now where the distinction between narrator/author and protagonist is blurred almost beyond distinction. Pamuk switches from Kemal’s fictional recollections and memories of Füsun to factual references to the book and the museum, thereby challenging our perceptions of what is fact and what is fiction. For instance,  “Fusun was wearing the earrings of which one is displayed at the entrance to our museum.”  In another passage Kemal refers to the book that readers of the novel happen to be reading, “we were fast approaching the ‘happiest moment of my life’ mentioned at the beginning of this book.”  Pamuk guides us through Kemal’s emotions and helps us to understand the spiritual significance of the objects that Kemal collects. Pamuk explains this most poetically; “We can bear the pain only by possessing something that belongs to that instant. These mementos preserve the colors, textures, images, and delights as they were more faithfully, in fact, than can those who accompanied us through those moments.”  Understood in this way the reappearance of the earring functions as an opportunity to recount the details of the happiest moment in Kemal’s life, when the butterfly earring falls from Füsun’s ear—the moment when she loses her innocence. 

Innocence as a central theme is emphasized in the title of the book and the museum. It also appears in the title of the museum catalogue, The Innocence of Objects, and reappears in the title of Grant Gee’s documentary film, Innocence of Memories, about the relationship between the novel and the museum. Why innocence is so important is a tricky question that is difficult to answer without destroying the mystery and elusiveness of The Museum of Innocence. It’s important to keep in mind that Orhan Pamuk doesn’t create titles to explain his books; his titles are intended to engage and inspire the reader to reflect upon, reconsider, and maybe question a book’s underlying meanings. Suffice it to say that innocence is captured in memories and objects, and the clues to what this actually means are found throughout the narrative—in every chapter and each vitrine. Just as Marcel Proust conveyed the wonder and innocence of childhood through the fictitious town of Combray in À la recherche du temps perdu, Pamuk conveys the innocence of memories, objects, love, and childhood in The Museum of Innocence as well as in other books such as Istanbul: Memories of the City and The Black Book. In this case, innocence permeates the entire narrative and whether it relates directly to a butterfly earring, a tricycle, or a hairclip is up to the reader and museumgoer to find out. One way or the other it all relates to the search for lost time.

Returning to the library that I set out to unpack, by now it ought to be clear that The Museum of Innocence should be cataloged among the greatest works of literature—nestled somewhere between Gustave Flaubert and the nostalgic Turkish writer Abdülhak Sinasi Hisar. However, if there were space for the vitrines in my imaginary library I would place them in the art history section. In order to fully understand what transforms the real objects that relate to a fictional story into art, it is helpful to break away from the narrative to consider the art historical underpinnings of the work. 

Those with an interest in art history will immediately notice the similarity between the carefully composed objects in Orhan Pamuk’s vitrines and Dutch vanitas painting. In this respect vitrine 40—The Consolations of Life in the Yali stands out in particular. The ornate crystal decanter filled with spirits, the watch, the seashell, the bundles of ripe grapes, and the delicate strand of pearls—all carefully laid out on a pristine white tablecloth—echo the Golden Age of Dutch painting, whereas glasses of raki and Turkish tea, and photographs of the Bosphorus create a distinctly Turkish setting and mood.

As I look at the objects in the vitrines I am reminded of the pleasure of trying to unravel the hidden meanings in Dutch still-life paintings as a child. These painstakingly realist 16th and 17th century paintings typically feature lavishly set tables where jewels, skulls, and timepieces provide clues to hidden messages often related to themes of life and death. The Consolations of Life in the Yali is comparable to a three-dimensional rendition of a Dutch still-life painting—one that truly captures Pamuk’s nostalgia for Istanbul and the Bosphorus. He acknowledges these sources of inspiration in The Innocence of Objects, “This portrait of my recollections from yali-life—the boathouses and rowing trips, the high ceilings, the enormous ships sailing so close by that it seemed as if they were passing through the living room fishing on the shore, the food and fried mackerel on the table—is inspired by memories of Dutch still-life painting.” 

In a world where objects, words, poetry and prose are all interconnected, it turns out that The Museum of Innocence in Istanbul is also connected to a place known as Utopia Parkway. They are connected as if part of “a map we think we know by heart—that has suddenly and without warning taken on the contours of a foreign land.”  As strange as this may sound, the link is vital to a full appreciation of Orhan Pamuk’s vitrines. The American sculptor Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), who worked from the basement of his home on Utopia Parkway, in Queens, New York, devoted nearly his entire lifetime to making shadow boxes. These were small glass-fronted boxes filled with objects, built on the fundamental principles of surrealism: ready-mades, found objects, and assemblage—many of the same factors that define the objects in Pamuk’s vitrines as art.

It’s easy to imagine Orhan Pamuk being intrigued by Joseph Cornell’s devotion to the careful arrangement of everyday objects in boxes. Yet, if the similarity between Cornell’s shadow boxes and Pamuk’s vitrines is worth mentioning from an art historical perspective, the more esoteric factors that inspired both of them to experiment with the poetry of objects is even more fascinating. A clue to the significance of this deep connection to objects and how they are arranged is already found in The Black Book (2006) where Pamuk writes, “It was not the objects that bewitched him, it was the order in which they’d been arranged.”  Pamuk had begun to consider the implications and impact of arranging objects and was maybe even hinting at how these objects would eventually fill the vitrines in his own museum.

Vitrine 37—The Empty House is among the most similar to Joseph Cornell’s shadow boxes.  The seemingly unrelated objects including a doorknob, a doll’s arm, an old marble, and a piece of wallpaper that could easily have been salvaged by Cornell during one of his many visits to the New York junk shops where he found everyday objects that he implemented as art. However, these are the poetic remnants of the empty house that Füsun’s had family left behind, the house that would soon become a museum. If Cornell’s ghost is nestled somewhere in the shadows of Pamuk’s vitrines, nowhere is it more evident than in vitrine 13—Love, Courage and Modernity. Here, a taxidermy crow is perched on top of a tiny photograph of an Istanbul nightscape, accompanied by a bottle of Spleen  eau-de-cologne, a copy of Kemal’s driver’s license, and half a glass of raki—all set against a painted starlit sky.  As compositionally perfect as this vitrine is, Pamuk’s description is what really makes the objects come to life, “Just as Istanbul’s city lights lit up the night sky, traces of the enchantment of the faraway stars and indigo sky filtered down in the orange-yellow flats and onto the people inside them.”   These are the perfectly measured words of a pictorial novelist who sees poetry everywhere.

Few have succeeded in capturing the mystery and poeticism of Joseph Cornell’s shadow boxes as precisely as the contemporary Serbian-American poet Charles Simic. His small collection of poems featured in Dime-Store Alchemy is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the magic of objects. Taking poetic license with the words in his poem Where Chance Meets Necessity, I discovered that it also conveys the essence of Pamuk’s fascination with objects:

Somewhere in the city of Istanbul there are four or five still-unknown objects that belong together. Once together they’ll make a work of art. That’s Pamuk’s
premise, his metaphysics, and his religion, which I wish to understand.

He sets out from his home in Nisanstasi without knowing what he will find. Today it could be something as ordinary as an old thimble. Years may pass before it has company. In the meantime, Pamuk walks and looks. The city has an infinite number of interesting objects in an infinite number of unlikely places. 

Charles Simic’s poems reveal the deeply spiritual, poetic factors that Cornell’s and Pamuk’s boxes share in common. Embedded into one of the poems is Joseph Cornell’s own description of his collection of bric-a-brac, one that comes incredibly close to describing what The Museum of Innocence is all about,  “A diary journal repository laboratory, picture gallery, museum, sanctuary, observatory, key…the core of a labyrinth, a clearinghouse for dreams and visions…childhood regained.”  

However, despite their mutual fascination with the precise arrangement of objects, there is something crucial that sets Orhan Pamuk and Joseph Cornell apart. Pamuk’s vitrines are part of a larger concept that doesn’t end with the placement of objects in boxes. He not only creates stories through objects, he paints pictures with words.  In order to fully understand this concept, Pamuk’s explanation of the relationship between objects and images in The Innocence of Objects is quite helpful, ”Objects are one thing, words another. The images that words generate in our minds are one thing; the memory of an old object used once upon a time is another. But imagination and memory have a strong affinity, and this is the basis of the affinity between the novel and the museum.”  He thereby pushes the boundaries of literature and art as far as humanly possible, and until now, no other artist or author has ever created something even remotely close to what Pamuk has achieved with The Museum of Innocence.  

In the subtle transitions from fiction to reality and back again Orhan Pamuk creates a universe that defies strict categorization. It is no coincidence that the transition from fictional story to actual museum includes a shift from small objects placed in vitrines to a room that visitors to the museum can walk into. In the final chapter of the story—Happiness, Kemal awakes in a moonlit attic bedroom. As he lies on the bed reflecting over the significance of the objects in his collection he expresses exactly how they make him feel, “like a shaman who can see inside the soul of things, I could feel their stories flickering inside me.”  This is where Kemal realizes that “just as the line joining together Aristotle’s moments was Time, so, too, the line joining together these objects would be a story.”   Pamuk elaborates on this in The Innocence of Objects, “This, according to Kemal, is the greatest happiness a museum can bring: to see Time turning into Space.”   In the spirit of Walter Benjamin, one could describe The Museum of Innocence as the ultimate manifestation of the passions of a true collector for whom “the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object.” 

Having spent the better part of the past year completely immersed in Pamuk’s story, I have lost myself in a fictional world that at times has felt so real that it has seeped into my consciousness and dreams, and left me wondering exactly where Füsun’s and Kemal’s story ends and mine begins. As Pamuk writes in The Black Book, “You become someone else when you read a story—that was the key to the mystery.”   Addressing the reader directly he states, “When I am talking of myself, I know I am also talking of you, and when I am telling your story you know full well that I am also giving voice to my recollections.”  

If, during the process of unpacking Pamuk’s library, I have also unpacked my own library, it has been to emphasize the importance of our own roles in unlocking the mystery of Pamuk’s work. As readers and viewers, we unpack our own libraries and access our own memories to unlock the meaning of the stories we read. If we are fortunate, we might experience The Museum of Innocence as if we were gazing into a mirror. After all,  “To read was to gaze into a mirror; those who know the ‘secret’ behind the looking glass are able to travel to the other side.”  When I look into the mirror I also see the protagonist of The Black Book, for whom “The only tremor in his quiet life was when Marcel Proust enticed him into reading À la recherche du temps perdu; reaching the end of the book, he went straight back to the beginning to read through to the end again; this he continued to do for the rest of his life.”  The realization that “each story leads to another story in an infinite chain, with each door leading to another door that leads to another”  is possibly the first step to understanding the meaning of the innocence of objects. For those in search of more clues, they are right there hiding in plain sight, in every chapter and each vitrine.

Nollywood, a term coined by New York Times journalist Norimitsu Onishi, refers to Nigeria’s prolific three-billion-dollar film industry. Created by Nigerian actors, writers, producers, and directors who wanted to tell ‘home-grown’ stories, the industry has powerfully shaped how Nigerians and other Africans see themselves and are seen by others. Since the early 1990s, Nollywood has been a vital part of a transnational, transcontinental conversation about Black self-representation that extends to South Africa, east to Kenya, and as far west as Jamaica and the United States. The fact that Nollywood also has its own capital in the United States (Houston) demonstrates its ever-growing global impact. 

Each year Nollywood produces more than 1,500 films in English, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Itsekiri, Edo, Efik, Ijaw, Urhobo, or one of the other more than 500 languages spoken in Nigeria. Ranging from stories of mythic characters to Nigerian kings and their courts, long-suffering wives, Bible-wielding pastors, business tricksters, glamorous young professionals, and émigrés stranded in New York or London, these films reflect the drama and complexity of life—and representation—in Lagos and beyond.

Throughout his career, Iké Udé has consistently blurred distinctions between art, performance, and style. Udé is perhaps most widely recognized for his performative, often autobiographical approach to photography that is typically outrageous, ironic, playful, and inquisitive. His 1994 Cover Girl series is an excellent example of his artistic approach, which involves an unusual combination of critical discourse disguised by fun and flair. Iké Udé rips fashion, art, and culture apart at the seams and offers us refreshingly original, and sometimes provocative, creations that ask us to question all kinds of cultural and social misconceptions. With the Cover Girl series, he found the perfect platform to play the multiple roles of dandy, provocateur, model, photographer, artist, and social critic. 

With the launch of his art, culture, and fashion magazine aRUDE in 1995, Udé set the standard for what would be a flourish of similar magazines worldwide in the years to follow. The title pays homage to the quintessentially stylish Jamaican rude boys of the 1950s and ‘60s. In 2000, Udé enforced his position in the art world with the exhibition and publication Beyond Decorum, featuring the most comprehensive presentation of his photographs to date. With Style and Sympathies, a solo exhibition at Leila Heller Gallery in 2013, he was on the verge of a stylistic breakthrough that would ultimately influence the Nollywood Portraits. 

With the Nollywood Portraits, the artist captures the essence of each of his subjects with the eye of a master painter. He brings in stylistic elements reminiscent of David (1748-1825, French), Ingres (1780-1867, French), and Sargent (1856-1925, American), in addition to Raphael (1483-1520, Italian)—as is evident in The School of Nollywood mural. Udé paints with color and light to create portraits that are tweaked to perfection through a keen attention to detail and use of unusually vivid, vibrant colors.  As such, Udé’s Nollywood Portraits come across as both timeless and contemporary. 

The lavish details and meticulously composed compositions recall the neoclassical portraits of Jacques-Louis David. Madame Recamier(1800) is a perfect example of David’s attention to decorative elements, punctuated by the centrally placed chaise longue. Madame Recamier’s dramatic, contrapposto pose, the luminosity of her skin, and the delicate drapery of her dress are precisely the kind of details we find in Udé’s portraits. The chaise longue alone recalls the carefully measured placement of furniture throughout the Nollywood Portraits. In the portraits of Genevieve Nnaji, Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, Daniella Chioma Okeke, and Linda Ihuoma Ejiofor in particular, the effect is heightened by their stylized poses. Similarly, Udé’s painstaking attention to pattern, decoration, and texture all echo Ingres’ neoclassical style. Just as the brocades, velvets, and silks contribute to the visual impact of Ingres’ portraits, Udé combines impeccably styled attire and carefully curated props and furniture to create portraits that transcend time and place.  

While Iké Udé’s photographs speak the rich visual language of classical portraiture, the context extends the conversation to a timely discussion about the social and cultural impact of Nollywood worldwide. These portraits convey the style and elegance of the individuals who have played an active role in making Nigerian Cinema what it is today: a globally recognized movie industry that has captured the hearts of fans worldwide. 

[1] bell hooks, Art on My Mind: Visual Politics (New York: The New Press, 1995) p. 64

Upon hearing that a-Ha were scheduled to play at Rock in Rio around the same time as our workshops, I contacted the artist Magne Furuholmen, who happens to be the lead keyboardist of a-Ha, to see if he was interested in participating. His proposal really captured the spirit of what we were aiming to achieve. He suggested creating graffiti-like sculptures with the youth, which added a new dimension to our project. The direct source of inspiration came from his series Literary Constructs, 2015 featured in the exhibition. The artists Keiko Mayama and Gabriel Bernardo prepared the massive blocks of clay that were used as a basis to stamp words into the clay with the use of aluminum letters. Participants were offered a unique hands-on experience that involved an active dialogue between text and form, poetry and art that extended far beyond what anyone could have imaged or hoped for. The gradual deconstruction and decay of the sculptures in the time leading up to the exhibition was a vital part of the concept, playing directly with the construction and deconstruction of both language and form. Within minutes of completion one of the five sculptures sank to the ground as if on cue. Our goal was to bring the exhibition down from the walls and into the local community, which is precisely what these sculptures did. With each passing day, as the effects of sun, rain and wind take a toll on the sculptures, visitor’s interest in and engagement with the sculptures has continued and will do so for as long as nature permits.

With artistic and literary inspiration as the essential motivating factors, Furuholmen’s intervention fit nicely into the framework of the Dulcinéia Catadora workshops. The truth is that we could never have anticipated how talented and receptive to these experiences the participants would be. Yet, with each new workshop, as we gradually became familiar with the teenagers, the results also became increasingly interesting.  Slowly but surely, with each inspiring poem read aloud by Lúcia, with each linguistic game, with the laughter and discussions that took place during the workshops, and with every blank piece of cardboard that was transformed into a one-of-a-kind cover, we were all taking part in a truly inspiring story.

For those who know a little about the history of Jamaican music both before and after Bob Marley, and who know that hip-hop culture was created long before the likes of Kanye had much to say, the exchange between reggae and rap music is a match made in heaven. Particularly for those who know their reggae royalty, from King Tubby to Prince Jammy, Lee Scratch Perry to Burning Spear, and who can also differentiate between Grandmaster Flash and The Sugarhill Gang, the constant give and take between reggae, hip-hop, crossover, and other musical genres is simply in the mix. Not long after Lauren Hill, the queen of hip-hop, married Bob Marley’s son Rohan Marley, she was in on an amazing remix of Bob Marley’s Turn the Lights Down Low. The song was one of the main titles on what is probably among the most dynamic crossover albums ever, Chant Down Babylon, produced by Bob Marley’s son Stephen Marley in 1999. For roots reggae purists the album is more rap than reggae, but it’s really not far from a classic ‘version’ – a true Jamaican remix. Just listen to hip-hop prodigy Wyclef Jean at his most ‘rootical’ if you need proof that reggae is as relevant today as it was when Bob Marley was still alive. It’s already been twelve years since Wyclef rocked the house with his legendary crossover album Preacher’s Son, and he continues to create positive vibrations with his unique mash-up of reggae/calypso/soca-inspired rap. Of course, true reggae enthusiasts know that the significance of reggae, if perhaps more prevalent than ever before, has been relevant ever since the seventies.

If reggae has had an influence on hip-hop music, the atmosphere in Jamaican dancehalls has also been influenced to an equal extent by American hip-hop culture, where it was adopted quite some time ago as an important source of inspiration for the development of modern Jamaican music. When dreadlocks in Jamaica are exchanged for ‘gangsta rap’ attire, and hip-hop stars in New York wear dreadlocks, and consciously dress in red, yellow and green it’s not just ‘crossover dressing’, more importantly it speaks of a vital exchange between different music forms.

While new generations continue to discover the magic of reggae, reggae music itself has also gone through some vital developments. A lot has changed since the good old days of conscious roots reggae, even during the past few years. Somewhere along the timeline, in the gradual transition from roots reggae to the most provocative forms of dancehall, various cultural and social shifts have taken place that have tremendous ideological and sociological implications that are worthy of discussion within the framework of contemporary art. Especially right now, in the midst of the current reggae revival , with Chronixx, Protojé and Jesse Royal among the movement’s rapidly rising stars, fascinating things are happening in Kingston that have implications far beyond Jamaica, both in terms of music and art. Just as the most relevant art and music anywhere in the world often reflects a bigger cultural phenomenon, Jamaican music, and dancehall culture in particular, is an ongoing source of inspiration for several of the participating artists in this exhibition.

Ebony G. Patterson’s intricately detailed tapestries and installation works encrusted with glitter, rhinestones, fabric, silk flowers, jewelry, sunglasses, toys, and other paraphernalia provide a fascinating visual platform for her ongoing investigation of topics that relate specifically to Jamaican dancehall culture. While it’s easy to understand these strong and highly significant cultural links, her work is also highly relevant within a wider international context.

When I first encountered Ebony G. Patterson’s sparkling installations and tapestries they immediately brought to mind the work of Liza Lou. In Patterson’s case, the politics of identity and fashion unfold in the shared space of contemporary art and dancehall culture. Deeply embedded within the complicated structures of both art and fashion is the notion of identity. Within this context, Patterson places dancehall style right where it shines most brightly – front stage and center. Of course, there is a lot more going on in the work than ‘simple dancehall pageantry’. Intricate patterns of identity are found in the glittering details that are meticulously hand-sewn into massive installations that rip dancehall style apart at the seams, offering up new and contradictory perspectives surrounding notions of gender, beauty and masculinity.

While Liza Lou became famous for transforming well known cultural symbols into extraordinary objects and magnificent installations, doing with Tide, Budweiser and Barbie, what Warhol did with the Brillo box and the Campbell’s soup can, Patterson hones in on the specifics of Jamaican dancehall culture, with Vybz Kartel, Bounty Killer and Shabba Ranks as likely suspects in her investigation of a wide range of identity issues that typically challenge preconceived notions of beauty, gender, sexuality and race. Most importantly, she unveils some of the fundamental driving factors behind the primping, preening and peacocking that is integral to dancehall culture. If Liza Lou captured everyone’s attention by transforming the mundane into the dazzling, Ebony G. Patterson is well on her way to becoming equally renowned for pimping up the bling.

In a statement about her own work, Ebony G. Patterson explains it succinctly:
My ongoing body of work explores constructions of the masculine within popular culture - while using Jamaican dancehall culture as a platform for this discourse. My works seeks to measure the masculine by looking at how popular culture has contributed to these transformations. The early work looked at the fashionable practice of skin bleaching, followed by investigations of so-called ‘bling culture’ and its relationship to the masculine within an urban context. While still making references to dancehall culture, my work raises larger questions about beauty, gender ideals and constructs of masculinity within so-called ‘popular black culture’. It examines the similarities and differences between ‘camp aesthetics’– the use of feminine gendered adornment - in the construct of the urban masculine within popular culture. This body of work raises questions about body politics, performance of gender, gender and beauty, beauty and stereotyping, race and beauty, and body and ritual. 
Throughout her work Ebony G. Patterson makes the invisible visible, pushing this idea to the utmost extreme to the extent that the final result almost morphs into camouflage. The implications of this tension between the visible and invisible are crucial to her work. Works such as Trump, Stump and Dominoes, 2014, featured in Jamaican Routes, or Lily, Carnation and Rose Budz, 2014 occupy the space with a glittering sea of seemingly innocent details, including flowers, toys, dolls, baby shoes and party clothes. These shimmering, sparkling works immediately come across as almost celebratory. To the contrary, they are based on crime scene photos. What might seem like an unlikely source of inspiration is precisely what anchors Patterson’s work within a serious critical framework.
Beyond the overwhelming visual impact, Ebony G. Patterson’s work reveals the complicated politics of a hypervisual negotiation for visibility. She captures our attention with pure optical overload, and subsequently forces us to consider and reconsider a whole range of topics that relate to gender, race, beauty and sexuality. For instance, the flamboyantly dressed men in her large-scale installations challenge traditional conceptions of masculinity and femininity.  Ultimately, she demands our attention in very much the same way that dancehall participants compete for the spotlight by making themselves visible. These guys are all dolled-up in flowery over-the-top outfits that, from a conservative perspective, would be considered effeminate. This is the very distinct visual currency used to buy and secure visibility within male-dominated dancehall culture, where the ultimate badge of masculinity is actually unabashedly feminine.      
André Woolery’s work is similarly entrenched in dancehall culture. In a recent statement about his own work he explains, “My subject matter is the exploration of Black identity, culture and history.  Too often the narratives surrounding Black experience and existence are undocumented, altered or one-dimensional.  What it means to be Black is not static or a monolithic term that has to succumb to historical context. Blackness links the experiences of the African diaspora so it remains a dynamic and moving target.  I want to create visual language that defines who we are through identity, captures our power through culture, and defines our paths through history.” 

I can almost hear Barkley L. Hendricks’ wise, articulate voice in those words, which reminds me that there are also some interesting similarities between Hendricks’ Passion Dancehall series and André Woolery’s Freedom of Expression series. As one of the foremost American painters of our time, Barkley L. Hendricks’ work has become a source of inspiration for some of the hottest young artists today, such as Kehinde Wiley and Jeff Sonhouse. His iconic portraits stand out in their grandeur, with a sumptuousness and attention to detail similar to Renaissance masters. With the talent of a master painter and an eye for style comparable to a high fashion photographer, Hendricks creates cool, ethereal portraits that capture the individual presence and attitude of his subjects. Hendricks’ painterly skill is coupled with humor, subtle irony, and a healthy dose of rebelliousness that serves to question and challenge all kinds of preconceived notions and stereotypes.  It’s worth mentioning that Hendricks, although he is not Jamaican, has spent a considerable amount of time in Jamaica over the course of the past 30 years and has a true and nuanced understanding of Jamaican culture, as seen in his Passion Dancehall series in particular. 

While André Woolery’s Freedom of Expression series bears similarity to Barkley L. Hendricks’ Passion Dancehall series, Woolery’s paintings lack nothing in terms of originality. The divas in his paintings come across, first and foremost, as proud individuals. This is fashion with an attitude as it plays out in full dancehall style, where plunging cleavage, tight-fitting jeans, flashy jewelry and dangerously high-heels are pretty much the norm for women. What makes it so interesting is how Woolery succeeds in capturing all this in such an elegant and respectful manner.   While Hendricks’ paintings reveal every sexy detail between couples on the dance floor, and are undeniably powerful in their own right, Woolery’s paintings fully embrace dancehall fashion in a somewhat less provocative manner. These portraits are all about attitude, and the enviable confidence of street style at its best, reminiscent of South African artist Nontsikelelo Veleko’s iconic portraits of urban youth in Johannesburg.  These kinds of connected voices are quite relevant to Woolery’s approach to contemporary art practice. He speaks about placing emphasis on a collective perspective that engages with what it means to be Black through a cross pollination of Black perspectives, and this is precisely what he achieves through his work as an artist. 

In Leasho Johnson’s ongoing investigation of Jamaican dancehall culture he pumps up the volume with brightly colored works that practically jump out from the wall, making us think twice about what we are looking at, both visually speaking and in terms of content. As a painter, illustrator and designer, Johnson is quite adept at combining elements of graffiti with a Pop Art-inspired aesthetic in his ongoing social commentary of contemporary Jamaican culture. He simultaneously pushes all boundaries while also managing to keep the visual language neat, precise and surprisingly approachable.   

His interest in various aspects of dancehall culture such as the highly sexualized and aggressive form of dancing known as ‘daggering’, and the raw, loud, and edgy music associated with ghetto youth culture are translated into complex works that challenge existing hierarchies between ‘high’ and ‘low’, institution and street, and between art and design.  The blatantly dirty imagery and what it represents almost seems to contradict his clean and meticulous approach to illustration and painting. His work is imbued with irony and humor that consciously plays with various perceptions and pre-conceived notions about Jamaican culture in a very playful and refreshing way. 

Using the visual language of cartoons enables Johnson to approach rather disturbing issues in a very direct manner. The results border on the humorous, conveyed with just enough seriousness to keep it real.    Just imagine if the subject matter of Back a Road, 2014 were photographed, painted, or drawn more realistically.  The simple neon orange cartoon-like forms somehow transform bawdy and indecent scenes into fun and playful social critique. There is definitely a lot to take in, but don’t be shy. Look carefully and observe every detail, because that’s where you will find the underlying messages that make Johnson’s work pop. 

With Back a Road, 2014 the contrast between the flat mural and the three-dimensional sculptures is quite significant. What plays out in the acrylic and cut vinyl mural is amplified in the speakers featured next to the mural. As such, these painted speakers highlight important details that are worthy of emphasis. For instance, the speaker painting Bruck-Out features a woman bending down suggestively in front of a banana leaf, which emphasizes the idea of a banana as a symbol of masculinity, and can also be interpreted as a reference to the banana plantations of colonial Jamaica.  Throughout his work, Johnson plays with the hidden and not-so-hidden meanings of the images and titles he choses, heightening the impact through the use of clever wordplay, often borrowed from Jamaican Patois and sometimes taken from the titles of well-known Jamaican dancehall songs. His vibrant visual language typically includes sound system speakers, sugar cane, bananas, banana leaves, dogs in heat, faceless helmet-clad women with huge lips, gyrating and fornicating couples, as well as the occasional pimped-up Red Stripe or liquor bottle. All in all, Leasho Johnson’s works are stunning, but what they depict is not exactly pretty, which is the perfect combination for a contemporary artist who is committed to addressing important social and identity issues throughout his work. 

Matthew McCarthy is a street artist, muralist and illustrator with a fascination for Jamaican street signs, old school dancehall illustrations, and global street art movements. He cleverly combines these various sources of inspiration into a comprehensive artistic project that is firmly grounded in urban Kingston with roots that extend in various creative directions. McCarthy, who is also known as ‘Eye-dealist’, is as comfortable creating a live painting on the stage of a Protojé concert as he is spreading words of wisdom through his underground magazine Regal Zeen, or collaborating with other artists to implement street art as a tool for societal change.

As an artist who actively engages with the community outside of the art world, he is committed to art that is made for and speaks from the streets. Although his work is influenced by the trend towards politically engaged street art worldwide it continues to grow and flourish locally. His work speaks the language of conscious roots reggae, with just enough of a rebellious and satirical tone to give the red, green and gold added layers of meaning. His distinct visual style is not only inspired by reggae consciousness, it actually embodies its principles. With social consciousness, collaborative creative practice and a desire to create change as three of his fundamental ideals, Matthew McCarthy is more than an artist who happens to be interested in the visual culture of reggae; his work fully embraces its highest ideals.

As with many of the artists featured in the exhibition, Matthew McCarthy’s work is driven by social critique and a youthful dissatisfaction with the systems that structure our social reality. Collaborative art practice is at the core of his creativity, which contributes to making his work highly relevant within a contemporary global context that extends beyond the art world. He is dedicated to creating change on the grassroots level to the extent that this influences each carefully chosen word and phrase and every cartoon-like illustration. On the same note, this sets the tone for his various interventions and punctuates every aspect of social commentary that runs throughout his work. McCarthy is driven by clearly defined ideals that he sums up beautifully in a description of the Paint Jamaica urban renewal project,  “Walls that once bore the marks of opposing political parties, fuelling the negative aspects of urban tribalism are now transformed into mediums of artistic expression. My work looks at issues as well as the strengths of how we connect in our social spaces.” 

Matthew McCarthy’s Regal Zeen is an integral part of his art practice. Regal Zeen is a print and online ‘zine’ that makes regular interventions into Jamaica’s social and artistic environments. There is an interesting double entendre at play here. A ‘zine’ is understood as an alternative magazine or newspaper published outside of mainstream media, typically printed on a photocopy machine, with an unpolished layout and bold designs. In this case, the word has been adapted to ‘zeen’, which means ‘OK’ in Jamaican Patois. According to McCarthy, Regal Zeen manifested out of the need to establish a sustainable and artistic lifestyle archive among young like-minded creative individuals, with the greater intention of inspiring a productive change in the environment, and represents a significant shift towards increased social consciousness. Indeed, Regal Zeen is a vital part of McCarthy’s generous approach to contemporary art practice that is fuelled and driven by pure reggae consciousness.  

Perry Henzell’s classic 1972 film The Harder They Come, starring and featuring the music of reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, has maintained its position through the years as the most well known Jamaican film worldwide. The movie conveyed the crime-ridden atmosphere of Kingston in the seventies and captured people’s hearts with the infectious lyrics and rhythm of its classic reggae soundtrack. Storm Saulter’s 2011 film Better Mus’ Come is also set during the seventies when Kingston was caught in the crossfire of politically fueled gang warfare. Straight out of jail, the main character Ricky becomes drawn into partisan fighting between the ruling People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labor Party. Adding to his struggle, Ricky’s romance with Kemala is also threatened by the pervasive atmosphere of violence that looms over Kingston. The narrative culminates in a scene inspired by the Green Bay Massacre of 1978, in which soldiers killed several suspected gang members. It’s an intense visual journey into a particularly tumultuous time in Jamaican history.

In addition to a special screening of Better Mus’ Come at Nordic Black Theatre the exhibition features two additional works by Storm Saulter that give a sense of the full range of his practice as a visual artist. Similar to how the New York-based artist Andrew Dosunmu works freely between the worlds of art, fashion and music, Saulter’s videos and photographs balance perfectly between the worlds of music and art. Few filmmakers have made an equally captivating music video as Storm Saulter’s take on Chronixx and Protojé’s hugely successful hit-song Who Knows. Saulter’s ability to translate a massive hit into an interesting visual narrative certainly contributed to it spreading like wildfire beyond the shores of Jamaica.

Storm Saulter’s work reads like a top-ten list of the hottest names on the island, and directs attention towards some of the fresh young voices that are following in Bob Marley’s footsteps. All in all, Saulter’s work reveals his obvious understanding of the personalities behind the people he chooses to photograph or film whether a talented musician or the fastest runner on the planet. Further anchoring Storm Saulter’s position as an artist that has one foot set firmly in the music world and the other in the art world, Jamaican Routes also features Dark Morass, a collaborative work between Storm Saulter and visual artist Rodell Warner.

References to the culture and history of Jamaica are a recurring source of inspiration for Cosmo Whyte. Whether he is working with photography, performance, video, installation, or works on paper, he approaches topics linked to a shared Jamaican cultural inheritance in ways that are universally relevant.   Among his most striking works is the diptych drawing Ginal , based on the famous photograph of the main character Ivanhoe Martin in the film The Harder They Come, in which he poses defiantly as a fashionable ‘rude boy’ and gunman. The work appropriates a very specific detail from Perry Henzell’s famous film that is immediately recognizable to most Jamaicans. Choosing to create a drawing out of such a familiar image without it coming across as derivative or outdated was certainly no easy task. Yet, he proves his artistic talent by appropriating this iconic image of Ivanhoe and turning it into a fresh and relevant contemporary artwork.

As significant as these references are, the power of Cosmo Whyte’s diptych also transcends its cultural specificity. From a strictly formal perspective this meticulously drawn work is enough to secure his position as a highly talented artist. He demonstrates a keen understanding of drawing techniques on a par with the best contemporary artists anywhere. He seems equally as conscious of the power of an eraser as Rauschenberg so famously was, and is clearly aware of the effect of each and every line and detail. Beyond the subtle nuances in shadows and tones and the stark contrast between light and dark, Ginal conveys a sense of movement that is further emphasized in the shift from one panel to the next. What is clearly defined in the fist panel is subsequently deconstructed, twisted and abstracted in the next, resulting in a drawing that conveys the intensity of Ivanhoe’s trials and tribulations in the film. 

Extending the cultural references to Africa and the United States, Jamaican Routes features Cosmo Whyte’s new sound-based work The Well Traveled African, 2015. The installation includes a traditional Jamaican pushcart with speakers that play an extended soundtrack compiled of samplings of reggae and dancehall music mixed in with news bytes and fragments from sociopolitical speeches. This little pushcart spreads its message with the force of a full Jamaican sound system, with emphasis on the politics of race in particular. We enter into occupied territory, where the sweet voice of Dennis Brown and Augustus Pablo’s soulful melodica compete with Stephen Marley, Capleton and Sizzla who steal the ‘rock stone’ from Bob Marley’s ‘Talking Blues’ and turn it into their own pillow. This is pure rebel music that echoes all around the world. Listen carefully and you just might hear the voices of great intellectuals such as Stuart Hall, James Baldwin, Marcus Garvey and Fela Kuti. The Well Traveled African is one of three parts in a larger body of work that also includes a stacked sound system (Wake the Town and Tell the People) and a photograph of a handheld megaphone (Town Crier). While the pushcart and sound system are immediately associated with Jamaica, the megaphone widens the geographic context of the work to also include West Africa, where its use has gradually replaced the traditional use of drums. These components come together as the core aspects of a body of work that, according to Cosmo Whyte, “addresses issues surrounding diaspora identity at a time when the racial climate in the US homogenizes the black experience both for the need of solidarity and oppression.” 
This is precisely the kind of political and social engagement that runs throughout Cosmo Whyte’s work. He fits into the category of cosmopolitan artists who typically move back and forth, up and down, between here and there, constantly navigating the landscapes of their mind that are rooted in multiple locations and cultures. These artists are often influenced by memory and driven by shared histories and dreams that consistently translate to a rich visual language that has no geographical boundaries. Many of them navigate the ever-shifting terrain of dislocation, defined by past and present, here and there, dream and reality. This is the kind of work that encourages us to reflect upon the specificity of personal experience as understood within a historical context that is deeply imbedded within the trajectory of postcolonial discourse, and is as relevant in relation to Cosmo Whyte’s work as it is to several of the other participating artists in the exhibition.
Stuart Hall was not the first to discuss the concept of roots versus routes, but his specific implementation of and elaboration upon the inherent difference between these two words is a topic that he discussed throughout his career. In relation to what Stuart Hall observed as a deep concern about identity and ones relation to the present and the past, he posited that this relationship could not be accurately expressed in terms of a return to roots. Stuart Hall’s approach to cultural identity theory, influenced as it was by concepts of fluidity, heterogeneity and hybridity, was a breath of fresh air for everyone who felt suffocated by the idea of cultural identity as strictly defined by shared similarities and a fixed, unchanging relation to history. In his seminal essay ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, Stuart Hall laid the groundwork for the kind of critical thinking that would come to define his work as a leading cultural theorist, describing cultural identity not only in terms of shared similarity but also in terms of difference.
There is, however, a second, related but different view of cultural identity. This second position recognizes that, as well as the many points of similarity, there are also critical points of deep and significant difference which constitute ’what we really are’; or rather – since history has intervened – ’what we have become’. We cannot speak for very long, with any exactness, about ’one experience, one identity’, without acknowledging its other side – the ruptures and discontinuities which constitute, precisely, the Caribbean’s ’uniqueness’. Cultural identity, in this second sense, is a matter of ’becoming’ as well as of ’being’. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something that already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything, which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous ’play’ of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere ’recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past.
Stuart Hall stated that cultural identity is “always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth. Cultural identities are the points of identification, the unstable points of identification or suture, which are made, within the discourses of history and culture. Not an essence but a positioning. Hence, there is always a politics of identity, a politics of position, which has no absolute guarantee in an unproblematic, transcendental ’law of origin’.”  This is precisely where many of the artists in this exhibition are positioned. Perhaps not so much ‘positioned’ as in a state of transition and growth, which is inspired both by historical and contemporary issues, and equally linked to the past and present as to the future.
Camille Chedda investigates themes of identity, class and race in work that speaks about notions of disposability and temporality. Her innovative approach to painting and drawing often involves the use of common materials such as garbage bags that she transforms into intriguing mixed-media installation works. As she explains it,  “In my work, the bag functions in varied ways depending on the type of bag used, where it is placed and how it has been manipulated. The portrait subject, whether it has been painted or drawn on the bag, often functions as an object or commodity, which inevitably expires with time and display.”  

For Wholesale Degradables Camille Chedda implemented the kind of cheap plastic bags that are prevalent throughout the Caribbean. In Jamaica these are known as ‘scandal bags’.  Typically, these are black and opaque, thereby making it possible to conceal their contents. Although predominantly used for carrying groceries, criminals also use ‘scandal bags’ to conceal weapons, drugs, stolen goods and even body parts. Chedda is interested in the idea of these bags’ role as a keeper of a person’s social identity. With these ideas as her point of departure she painted portraits on translucent bags, providing a window into various identities. Each portrait also functions as an object, as a container of identity. Of course these bags are not only containers they also represent waste. ‘This Bag is 100% Degradable’ is stamped on the bottom of some of the bags—not biodegradable, but degradable.

If these bags are to be understood as containers of identity, the reference also seems to extend to the individuals whose portraits are depicted both on and in the bags. Clearly, to be degraded is to be shamed or humiliated, yet these individuals appear relaxed and nonchalant; at least the ones on the outside – the visible ones. In stark contrast, the portraits painted on the inside come across as decidedly less at ease, less comfortable, less visible. Their identities are concealed, similar to the objects that might be hidden within these bags. This subtle play between visibility and invisibility, between what is perceptible and what isn’t makes Wholesale Degradables resonate on many levels. By the time these bags finally do disappear and dissolve, perhaps beyond the lifetimes of these individuals, their identities will also be erased, creating a profound visual metaphor for temporality.

Andrea Chung takes us far away from Jamaica to an island off the East coast of Africa with her installation Sink & Swim. Chung’s work typically examines the complexities of previously colonized countries. She often makes use of archival material such as photographs or tourist brochures to reconstruct critical narratives that challenge preconceived notions and misconceptions about a particular culture, equally relevant in relation to Mauritius as it is to Jamaica. For instance, by manipulating tourism imagery she investigates how island nations are sold to tourists through picturesque, idealized fantasy. She thereby inspires us to question fiction versus reality as we try to make sense of these conflicting narratives. Environmental issues, the power structures of labor, and an exploration of migration patterns are also recurring topics that tend to influence her work. As such, she consistently exposes the bare and complicated roots of a particular place, revealing the extent to which certain cultures have been created through the influence of what she describes as multiple ‘mother cultures’.

To create Sink & Swim she cast liquor bottles out of sugar to reference a method of fishing used by some Mauritian fishermen. The bottles are hung in the space accompanied by small replicas of fishing tackle, wrapped and tangled in fishing line, and left to the elements of the space. Depending on the environment where the work is created, the bottles will crack, shatter, and slowly disappear over time, resulting in a strong symbol for the disappearance of both a community and a trade. Beyond the visual impact and fragility of the work, there are numerous subtexts that give the work additional impact. Andrea Chung’s description of the historical events that inspired this work sheds important light on the installation, “After the abolition of slavery in Mauritius, many newly freed slaves (also known as Creoles) became fishermen and subsequently established small fishing villages, particularly in the southern part of the island, rather than return to the cane fields to work for their former enslavers. Many of these fishing villages remain today and these fishing traditions have been passed down for generations. Unfortunately the trade is now threatened due to over-fishing.”  Although this relates specifically to Mauritius, it is an overly familiar narrative throughout the world.  

What might be described as the reconstruction of picturesque landscapes seen throughout her work brings to mind what bell hooks describes as diasporic landscapes of longing.   In a text about the work of Carrie Mae Weems bell hooks discusses the return to a dreamed-about home and the notion that every bit of history and experience is seen as essential to the unfolding of one’s destiny. She continues with a discussion surrounding the commonality of longing, of the shared experience of yearning for connection, for home Africa as present and yet far away, as both real and mythic. As an artist born in the US of Jamaican and Trinidadian heritage, who is clearly interested in and influenced by more than one culture, it is easy to see how aspects of cultural connectivity and longing contribute to Andrea Chung’s unique artistic perspective.

Olivia McGilchrist explores translocation and physical expressions of various emotional states in photographs, performances and videos that relate directly to issues of cultural identity. She frequently implements her alter ego ‘whitey’ in her artistic investigation of Jamaica, which she describes as a space of utter difference. Born in Kingston to a French mother and a Jamaican father, and educated in France and the UK, her work is directly influenced by an ongoing exploration of her own cultural identity. In general terms, she incorporates her body in her own practice, often repositioning it within the context of a picturesque tropical space. She describes her approach as a means of questioning the shifting spaces in which she appears to belong, from the female body in a postmodern space to a visibly white postcolonial creole identity.

For Otherness, an ongoing project that began in 2013, she collaborated with the octogenarian Guyanese-Jamaican actress, playwright and storyteller Jean Small. This body of work deconstructs the physicality of postcolonial bodies through videos that are presented as an installation that evokes a live performance, either directly in the space or re-presented as an interactive element in the space. As such, she conveys thoughts about identity and race in a very direct and compelling manner. In this two-screen projection the visual language of otherness is defined formally by clear, strong contrasts that emphasize the topics of identity and race that are addressed through her work. The visual details of her clean and precise formal approach have a strong representational function that gradually emerges in the slow, measured performance that plays out between Jean Small and Olivia McGilchrist.

Otherness is carefully set up in a manner that places viewers in an indefinable space in between, which thereby intensifies our experience of the work. The fluid and measured push and pull between the two women turns into a captivating performance that speaks beyond the personal implications of McGilchrist’s own role in the work. In this graceful and gentle meeting between two souls there is a sense of something unresolved that lingers in the space. As viewers, we are physically situated in a space of duality and opposites that inspires us to consider the significance of each and every glance and movement. Similar to complete strangers who eventually become friends, an initial sense of confusion, skepticism, and possibly even fear are subtly transformed to understanding, compassion, intimacy and playfulness. We focus on the hands and faces of each, both separately and as one, as the camera spans back and forth, up, down and around these two women. We play an active role becoming the ‘other’ suspended in an ever-shifting space of identity as we search to understand the specifics of each individual and their relation to one another.

Drawings are an important aspect of Oneika Russell’s work, which she often integrates into installation format. This is particularly evident in Notes to You, which I had the pleasure of seeing for the first time when it was installed at Devon House as part of the Jamaica Biennial, 2014. It’s difficult to imagine a more ideal site-specific setting for this work. Russell’s small works on paper heightened the air of nostalgia that already lingers in the air of this historical mansion. Walking into the furnished bedroom to discover small notecards with colorful drawings and notes felt like I was being let in on an intimate secret. The notecards were carefully placed around the room, not hanging on the walls, but tucked among the sheets of the canopy bed, dangling from the mosquito netting, and snuck between a perfume bottle and a silver brush on the commode. Within this particular setting, the drawings seemed caught in limbo between past and present, evoking strong associations to themes related to memory, loss and displacement.

The short hand-written texts on the inside of each notecard create an intriguing play between text and image that facilitates the search for underlying meaning. The notes range from highly dramatic; “You ran away like a wild animal” to melancholic; “you learned to keep your head down and your heart shut and your scope small”. One could easily get swept away in the romanticism of it all if it weren’t for the fact that these are more than delicate little drawings. Although there is beauty in every detail, there is something else looming in the shadows, which gives the work a necessary forcefulness and edge. These aren’t simply portraits of some lovelorn woman, or traces of something that may have transpired in this particular place. These drawings touch upon something that reaches beyond the specificity of a particular time and place.

Looking carefully at the portraits we see faces that tentatively peek through the foliage and flowers. We also see faces that are decorated and dotted to the extent that the most predominant facial features are the eyes. Saturated colors and geometric patterns cover many of the faces, transforming them into powerful masked individuals. These come across as proud, confident, and imposing. Alternately, the faces fade into a sea of grey and white and almost verge on abstraction. As such, these portraits balance a very fine line between visibility and invisibility.  However, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that these portraits depict different qualities in the same individual. Whether seen carefully peeking out from behind verdant leaves, or completely hidden behind a pale greenish-gray pattern these portraits are clearly about presence and absence, as well as the idea that ones identity is constantly shifting and shaped by many factors, including environment and experience, as well as cultural and natural surroundings. With this work we discover the unique confidence that seems to arise from the constant restructuring of one’s identity within the fluid and ever-changing context of synthesizing past and present, here and there, dream and reality.

Marlon James, not to be confused with the award-winning author by the same name, is a prominent Jamaican photographer who resides in Trinidad. He is committed to straight photography and creates striking images that command the viewer’s full and undivided attention. His experience as a fashion photographer contributes to an open-minded approach that is coupled with an unfailing ability to connect to his subjects. He has an unusual talent for finding beauty in the ordinary and mundane, and seems to enjoy challenging traditional notions of beauty and power. Even the artists, filmmakers and musicians that he photographs, who are celebrities in their own right, are chosen as his subjects not because they are stars but because they are people whom he knows well. First and foremost, he is interested in delving beneath the surface of his subjects and to have them unveil in front of the lens rather than to dress up and pose for the camera.

These portraits capture our attention with the power of a glamorous image of a supermodel, extending beyond the limits of traditional fashion photography and inspiring us to consider the realness and humanity of the subjects instead. Marlon James has a keen eye for rough, urban beauty, consistently conveyed in a photographic approach that strips his subjects bare. As it happens, several of the portraits in Jamaican Routes feature participating artists in the exhibition, an aspect that hints at the interconnectivity between the artists in the exhibition.

Marlon James’ portraits of Camille Chedda, Ebony G. Patterson and Storm Saulter convey an attitude and presence that is difficult to capture in a photograph without seeming staged and posed. The fact that James really knows his subjects somehow enables him to strip his compositions down to the absolute essentials. Yes, these artists are budding stars, but there is something more genuine and more interesting at play in these ‘bad-ass’ portraits. Ordinary person or superstar, friend or foe, unknown or famous, James’ photographs are all about substance. Equally impressive are his portraits of dancehall legend Yellowman and drummer Akiri Cooper. Contrasts between shadow and light add dramatic effect to portraits that convey real presence, which has nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with style. With the exception of Yellowman, who is all decked out in a three-piece suit and hat, it’s interesting that although the subjects are wearing little more than a tank top, at most, their inner style really shines through.  Gisele is possibly the most stunning example. She sits regally on a worn upholstered chair as if she were the queen of Jamaica, yet she is dressed in simple running shorts, a tank top and flip-flops. It’s impossible not to notice the scars on her arm, but this doesn’t detract from her beauty in any way because she possesses the kind of real beauty that comes from inner strength and dignity.   

It is important to keep in mind that the works featured in Jamaican Routes stem from completely different experiences and perspectives.  The photographs, installations, films, sound works, paintings and drawings included in the exhibition reflect both similarities and differences in cultural identity, visualized though various formal and conceptual approaches. Keeping an expansive notion of cultural identity in mind extends Jamaican Routes in as many directions as the roots and routes that inspired some of these works. If these artists are not easily pinpointed it’s because they are part of something that is fluid, changing, and rapidly expanding into the larger framework of international contemporary art practice. As such, Jamaican Routes moves back and forth, between cultures and time zones, shifting between past, present and future, revealing the individual stories and shared histories of a global narrative. Borrowing from U-Roy’s classic seventies dancehall hit ‘Wake the Town and Tell the People’, it’s time to wake the world and tell the people about these young contemporary artists who are coming your way.

Selene Wendt: Although a lot has changed within media art since you started out in the early eighties, the essential elements of your work have remained fairly constant through the years. Before we go into detail about the specifics of your work, please tell me a little bit about your ongoing commitment to video in particular.

Theo Eshetu: One of my very first projects was Till Death Us Do Part, 1982-1986. The title was a sort of declaration of faith, a marriage vow to using video, but it also referred to the idea of seeing video in the light of its relationship with other media. I was particularly interested in the idea of recreating the gestures and forms of ritual to explore the interrelations between video and other forms of expression such as photography, theater, cinema, documentary, and music. I think it’s generally true that when you want to discover something new and explore the unknown, you have to enter its ritual dimension. It’s through ritual that we can enter the mystery of the unknown.

SW: What did you discover in the process?

TE: I soon discovered that I was also exploring my own transnational identity and that images that at the time seemed instinctive and spontaneous were charged with biographical elements. Video, being the sum of influences from other forms of expression, reflected my own multicultural perceptions, while its capacity to influence other forms reflected my passion for making works in different fields, from museums to television and cinema, from the theater to the concert hall. More importantly, however, I was exploring ways to bring an African, as well as Afro American, sensitivity to a creative medium that was seen as a cutting-edge technological medium with which to express our distance from humanity. Marshall McLuhan defined video as a cool medium, and I was interested in regaining the "lost" humanity and exploring it as a hot medium.

SW: In other words, a multidisciplinary approach that simultaneously addresses issues of your multicultural upbringing. This is quite evident throughout your work, ranging from Blood is Not Fresh Water to Brave New World and Africanized, and also including Trip to Mount Zugualla and Return of Axum Obelisk.

TE: Naturally, my African origins are important and many of my works reflect this, but biography was not my prime concern. Initially I wanted to counterbalance what I perceived as a Eurocentric attitude in the arts and a tendency, especially with television broadcasters, to be nationalistic and to view Africa in a negative light or to exalt its exotic fascination. So actually my interest in incorporating an African sensitivity starts with an interest in video as a hybrid medium and a desire to express stories and ideas outside the mainstream. I was attracted to video because it was an unexplored medium, and one with which I could explore things that hadn't been done before in the arts—at least not with video. Using it to delve into the subconscious and the unknown was a way of attempting to understand it. Video was a tool in the hands of individuals, as opposed to television, which is a state run medium, and I thought that an individual approach, no matter how abstract, could be more truthful than the artificially constructed realities shown on television.

SW: You have developed and honed your approach in tact with the technological advancement and evolution of video as a medium. How has this affected your work?

TE: I have followed its development since the birth of the VHS and with every technological development there has been a conceptual shift. The ugliness of VHS brought about an exploration of its conceptual basis, and working with broadcasting media brought about a dialogue between high and low culture and highlighted a more subjective approach in contrast to the so called objective approach of television. The introduction of digital technology brought about reflections on the relationship between originals and copies and on the preservation of dying ideas. However I always find myself investigating the same questions with regard to the relationship between experience and its representation as an image.

SW: Well, in all fairness, while you have maintained an interest in investigating similar underlying issues, your work is definitely not the same as it was thirty years ago. Let’s start from the beginning. Is there an early work that has particular significance to your artistic development?

TE: My early twenty-monitor video-wall installation, Till Death Us Do Part, 1982-1986, in part inspired as a critique and fascination with the Nuba photographs of Leni Riefenstahl, was my first large-scale work. I had worked two years on that project and even collaborated with the inventor of the video-wall. Through reenactments of Rites of Passage I was simultaneously discovering what could be done with video that couldn’t be done with any other medium and exploring the idea of liberating the image out of the constricted box of the TV set.

SW: Blood is Not Fresh Water is among your most iconic works, and seems to signal an artistic breakthrough for you. In fact, much of the footage is re-appropriated in later work—for instance, the boys swimming in the river. At the time, how conscious were you that this would become a seminal work?

TE: After about ten years of making video art I shifted to exploring a visual language in which art and television could coexist. Trying to unite two opposites. I was initially disappointed because I felt it leaned too much toward television and also because I felt that the overwhelming experience I had by visiting Ethiopia and reconnecting with my grandfather did not really come across with the desired fluidity. I guess this also had to do with the tremendous success of the earlier work Travelling Light, 1992, in which the balance between artistic expression and biographical portrait were more sealed as a single experience.

The subject of Travelling Light was the cult figure Lindsay Kemp, who provided a unique opportunity for me to really experiment with the interdisciplinary qualities of video making. Kemp was the mentor of David Bowie, who helped shape the Ziggy Stardust persona. As mime, actor, and director he studied under Marcel Marceau and Kazuo Ohno, and his outlandish theater is an extraordinary cocktail of diverse styles and references. Not only was I a great admirer of his work, I saw in his multidisciplinary approach to theater a parallel to what I was trying to achieve with video. Ultimately, with Travelling Light I managed to demonstrate a complex network of ideas where theater, real life, and mythology could enter into a dialogue in a light-hearted yet visually stunning way.

SW: Sounds more like a successful ending than the beginning of a lifelong career.

TE: Unlike Travelling Light, when Blood is Not Fresh Water first came out it didn't get broadcast nor was it shown in art shows, but ended up being well received in many African film festivals, and I suddenly became known as a filmmaker rather than a video artist. It transcends traditional categories of film and documentary, which I thought was a good thing, and introduced the gender of the visual essay. 

SW: And what did you discover about your grandfather in the process?

TE: The truth is that I rediscovered my grandfather by making the film about him. I reconnected with him after many years and reconnected with my Ethiopian self. It was a remarkable experience to discover the aspects of my Ethiopian identity, which my European upbringing had erased. I appreciated the value of safeguarding one’s memory as a way of connecting with people and finding a position in the world. I think that was the biggest lesson learned both individually and as an artist.

SW: Although you were initially unhappy with the results, everything else suggests that it was an incredible experience.

TE: It was, but I felt the experience was greater than the video I made about it. In hindsight, however, I was wrong to undervalue the results of Blood is Not Fresh Water. Though very much a documentary, it did point to a new direction in video making, and though it was not as radical and visionary as Travelling Light, it is a more personal work and all the better for it.

SW: What changes occurred in your production method as a result of creating that work?

TE: Up to that point I had treated Africa as a metaphoric space, a place I valued for its inspirational and creative qualities, in some way challenging and playing with stereotypes, but nonetheless a powerful place of the imagination. The great thrill of making that film involved going to the continent and seeing the relationships between an imagined Africa and a real Africa. Going to Ethiopia physically and to the places of lost childhood memories, just at the time when those memories were fading. It was a way of recuperating those memories and juxtaposing them with the real, yet equally imaginary, images of Ethiopia generated by television.

I based the film on the essay-like tradition of travel writing and updating the archetypal African tradition of a grandfather transmitting his culture to his grandson. I wished to reveal the rich cultural heritage of a country known to the general public as a place of war and famine.

SW: The video takes us on a journey to your grandfather’s house in Addis Ababa and to various places around Ethiopia. Among other details, we learn of his involvement with the Italian occupation, and his relationship with Haile Selassie. In fact, your grandfather played a very important role in Ethiopian history. How is this captured in the video, and what kind of stories unfold in the work?

TE: He had written numerous books based on the lives of emperors, earning him the title of Ethiopia’s leading historian. During the film we visit his birthplace in Ankober, see tombs of emperors he had written about, and embark on a journey to visit the site of the lost Arc of the Covenant, which takes us to the islands on Lake Tana, to the source of the Blue Nile. We visit the keeper of the Arc in the church of Mariam of Zion in Axum and learn of the legend of the Queen of Sheba, and Ethiopia's origin myth. We learn of how Menelik, the first son of King Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba brought the Arc to Ethiopia for protection. We witness the celebration of Timket, commemorating the baptism of Christ, and also visit Lalibela, with its twelve rock-hewn churches supposedly built by angels. This is where the symbolic tomb of Adam is said to be. Our journey proceeds to the south of Ethiopia, where we meet the tribal populations of the Hammar and the Murzi, and we also visit the site where anthropologists discovered Lucy, or Australopithecus afarensis, the earliest human remains. This is the personal, historical, mythical, and anthropological story that unfolds in Blood is Not Fresh Water. I never wanted to let the biographical element dominate; rather, I wanted to invite the viewers to take the journey with me to our communal ancestor.

SW: How did your grandfather respond to the work?

TE: Part of the challenge was that he didn’t even want to be in it. I spent a period of several months trying to convince him. During that time he told me the stories of Ethiopian history and his own life as ambassador in various European nations, as well as his complex involvement with Haile Selassie. But he did not want to be filmed talking of these things, treating me as the lost grandson who doesn't know. It was true that I really didn't know him at the outset, but of course I did get to know him, and his very wry sense of humor, in the process of making the video. I deliberately tricked him a few times, by filming while he was showing me some old photographs, or inviting him to go for a drive to his birthplace and grabbing a couple of fugitive interviews for the brief minutes he conceded after much insistence. It was a game and none of this struggle is visible in the video. When he finally saw the end result, he typically complained about the presence of other people in the film, saying that he thought it was supposed to be only about him.

There were two issues at play, I was a grandson bonding with his grandfather, but I was also a filmmaker who was trying to bond with his subject. The entire process involved walking the fine line between personal and universal.

SW: Not only did your grandfather play a very important role in Ethiopian history during Haile Selassie’s reign, he was also a prominent writer. Please tell me more about the importance of your grandfather in relation to shaping a certain understanding of Ethiopian history.

TE: As a writer he studied Ethiopian history through the writings of foreigners. He absorbed what the Italians, French, and English had written and how it was represented in the bible and other religious texts, and then proceeded to write a history of Ethiopia for Ethiopians, creating his own narrative liberated from a Eurocentric perception of Ethiopian history. In a sense I tried to imitate his approach by studying different ways to explore the theme of origins, from the religious, historical, and anthropological perspectives, and blending them into one single narrative. In the end, the video became a portrait of him in his own style.

SW: The fragmented compositional approach is also a compelling parallel to the trajectory of life itself, in which aspects of the past influence the present, while our experiences of the present can often change our understanding of the past.

TE: Yes, there is a constant interaction between present-day observation and memory. In many instances the images shot with a video camera represent the present-day journey and images shot on super-8 film represent the transition into a memory. The editing style reflects a kind of snapshot observation you get while traveling: you look at something for a fraction of a second and recognize that there is a longer story that lies beneath. These fragments are intentionally fleeting, and before you can focus on them, they disappear like memory itself.

SW: Having traveled to Ethiopia myself as a child, the work triggered a lot of interesting childhood memories for me too. It brought back the full impact of experiencing a religious procession in Lalibela—the colors, the sounds, the heat, the dust, the brocades, the crosses, and the umbrellas. The overall beauty and excitement of that wonderful experience was suddenly right there before me in full force, so I can only begin to imagine how the experience affected you.

It’s quite beautiful at the end where you quietly say, “This was the house I lived in as a child. This was my whole world.”

TE: That is obviously the climax of the film because throughout the film you don’t actually know what the real subject matter is. Only at the end with that statement about my childhood home does one realize that this video really is a personal journey. Up to that point it is never quite clear where these meanderings will lead.

SW: Although there is a hint in the previous segment when the Patriarch says, “You can never be a stranger in your motherland.”

TE: Yes, that is the turning point. The statement captures the whole idea of an outsider who was not a stranger after all because he belongs to the land. My position as both an outsider and an insider is integral to the work. Everyone I saw and every place I visited was part of a forgotten memory. 

SW: What can you say about the religious aspect that is prominent in this work, and in almost all your work?

TE: I think that stems from my earlier interest in rituals and symbols and a Jungian understanding of religious imagery as a communal archetype image, which also reflects a deeper, psychological aspect that binds people together. It’s this symbolic transversal aspect of belief systems that I find interesting.

SW: Throughout your work there is a strong dichotomy between fiction/dream/memory set against reality/history/documentary. Does this evolve naturally, or are you consciously interested in emphasizing this balance of opposing factors?

TE: This interest in balancing opposing factors is really crucial to my approach in tackling any subject matter. The balance between these two tendencies, however, has changed over time. Initially I was exclusively drawn to a constructed image as a way of transcending what I perceived as the photographically ugly quality of video. This drew me to a world of dreams and fantasy in order to explore the specific painterly qualities of the electronic image. As the image quality improved it became inevitable to renegotiate this dichotomy in different terms. But it's a dichotomy inherent to the character of the medium itself. Video is after all the medium that most closely imitates eyesight, in that it enables you to see things as they are happening. Yet, at the same time, just like eyesight, it can create illusions. The dichotomy between reality and its representation and the belief that all forms of representation are fictional, has led me to explore the imagination as a more truthful indicator of how we perceive the world.

SW: Brave New World is another key work that represents a slightly different approach to symbols that has more to do with installation than documentary. What do you see as the limitations and possibilities associated with each of these approaches?

TE: My interest in video making is to explore the different things it can do—to explore it as a language of television and as an art form. But I am also interested in the different spaces it can occupy, be it the cinema, the museum space, or peoples’ living rooms through the television set—three very different spaces that require different presentation formats. As an installation it’s more akin to sculpture and therefore more suited to the museum or gallery space. However this doesn't affect my thematic concerns, but it does greatly affect the forms they take.

SW: Whether you are working with documentary or installation, you always maintain your photographer’s eye. How do you perceive your own role as photographer?

TE: I began photographing at an early age, in fact when my grandfather first gave me a camera for my tenth birthday. In my teens I photographed my favorite musicians in concerts, from David Bowie to James Brown, from the Rolling Stones to Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley. Music was my first passion and I think it shows in my videos. Taking pictures at concerts was quite a challenging way to learn photography because of the difficult lighting conditions, the movements, the complication of shooting in a crowd, and the excitement of the events themselves. By the time I was an art student in London I had already been photographing for several years and began to question the relationship between the aesthetic pursuits of traditional photography and the anti-aesthetical approach of conceptual photography by artists.

When I started making videos, however, it was with the idea of reconciling these two tendencies and to unite the approach of traditional photographers with the conceptual approach of artists using photography. Of course the great difference between video and photography is the element of movement and time. Photography freezes time and video watches it flow.

SW: The relation between video and television is also integral to your overall visual language. Why is this particular aspect so important to you?

TE: Well, television is such an influential medium, affecting our understanding and knowledge of the world. I was interested in using this tool of mass communication as a tool for artistic expression, confronting the generally racist and sexist premises of television, its crass sensitivity. Nevertheless, I was attracted to the possibilities of transformation and the vast unexplored areas of video untouched by television. I began seeing video as a container for ethereal, ephemeral images, yet ones capable of greatly influencing our perceptions and our understanding of the world.

SW: Portraiture also figures fairly prominently into some of your works. Perhaps most strikingly in Trip to Mount Zugualla, in the portraits of various people, especially toward the beginning. How does this relate to your role as a photographer?

TE: These portraits are interesting in terms of the ethics of what can and cannot be photographed. The question of what is gained and lost when photographing a ritual and what is preserved of the original experience in the photograph. Also the question of how one’s presence as a photographer influences the outcome of the situation itself. In the video there is a little boy who says “no no” when I film the shaman, yet the shaman himself poses for the picture when he sees that I have a camera.

SW: Isn’t there an instance where they brought a girl in a trance over to you to be filmed?

TE: Yes. At a certain distance a young woman entered a trance. A conventional photographer might have gotten up to get a closer shot. I deliberately avoided that, wishing to keep a disenchanted gaze as it were. I tried not to be invasive, avoiding any gesture that felt unnatural with my surroundings. I try to be invisible, which of course is not possible. In this case she went into a trance about twenty meters away and when the participants saw that I was not moving toward her, they carried her toward me! In a sense that’s the very paradox of photography, how the photographer’s presence changes the reality of what is going on. How the mere presence of a photographer influences reality itself.

SW: Let’s return to Brave New World, a work that literally mirrors the world we live in, right down to the globe shape in the center of the installation. How did it evolve?

TE: I had been invited to participate in a large exhibition at Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Rome and didn’t have what I felt was an appropriate new work to show. So, I had to think of something new that could be made briefly within challenging limitations. I hit upon an idea while looking at a three-way mirror in the bathroom and noticed a circular effect when the mirrors were moved closer, so I decided to construct a box of mirrors that recreates this circular effect. Then I made a fairly rough non-linear montage with the many hours of super-8 footage that I had gathered during various travels, which gave it a dreamlike quality. The structure was placed behind an artificial wall and a gilded frame mounted around the opening. It looked like a painting on the wall showing a kaleidoscopic image when it was viewed from a distance, but as one moved closer there was an effect of a giant globe made from the reflections on the mirrors, and finally, when viewers stuck their heads inside the installation, they would see themselves reflected as the sole spectators of a giant world. The viewer as God! This is a work that addresses the interconnectivity of cultures.

SW: The kaleidoscopic effect is something you have also returned to in later work?

TE: It relates to treating the images as a physically malleable object, which can be cut and pasted and multiplied or dissected, as something immaterial. It’s a constant reminder that images are just representation, tricks for the eyes, but also pointing to something very real.

SW: The soundtrack rarely coincides with the images we see, for instance a Balinese dancer and jazz music. What is the significance of this?

TE: I'm not necessarily interested in just the image or the sound, but a third meaning that is born out of that combination. You might see an African mask and hear soul music, but it’s not really about the mask nor the soul music, but the idea that emerges out of the combination of the two.

SW: The interconnectedness between seemingly unconnected things?

TE: Yes, and a way of going beyond outward appearances. There is a certain type of experimentation in music that relates to a boundless space of sound. I try to evoke that through images. In Body and Soul there is a huge distance between the images and the sound, often showing images of people dancing to music that they are obviously not dancing to. I think that through this unexpected combination we “see” the soul or the spirit that animates the body. Sound is a very integral part of video and the harmonies and counterpoints with the images are very much a part of the magic.

SW: You thereby heighten our awareness of the underlying significance of the various images and open up to a questioning of and reflection of the balance between fiction and reality, or even a non-reality.

TE: And capturing non-reality is precisely what I aspire to. Or I should say capturing the imagination. It’s not that I'm not interested in reality; to the contrary, I'm interested in what the image disguises. 

SW: Africanized is another work that combines your various approaches into one complete work. You once said that the film signals a need to value the spirit of Africa in the context of globalization. Could you elaborate in more detail on the strategies you rely on to get this message across?

TE: A lot of the videos come about as the result of trying to solve a visual problem. Africanized came about because I had gathered a lot of footage in diverse places around the world and could not find a link between them. Eventually I noticed that there was something African that linked them. I decided to not worry too much about the interconnectedness and created a collage in the style of a William Burroughs cut-up. Each situation was not rich enough to stand on its own so I created a global vision out of the fragments. People typically say that the world is becoming Americanized, and I was interested in flipping the idea to hypothesize an Africanized world. It was kind of a joke but also quite serious in terms of the idea that the world could be a much better place if it were bit more Africanized.

SW: The work certainly conveys a sense that the spirit of Africa is everywhere. For me the segment from Brooklyn really stands out in particular, and interestingly enough it all plays out right near The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

TE: I presented the work a few years later at BAM, on the same day that I had filmed the original scene of the Dance Africa festival. People came to the cinema at BAM and could see in the video the events that were taking place outside and when they stepped back into the streets found themselves in the midst of what was shown in the film. Bringing distant places closer to home and turning the exotic into the familiar, the Other into the self, that is my interest in art.

SW: I would describe Africanized as a highly fragmented, non-narrative, visual story in the spirit of Pier Paolo Pasolini or Fellini.

TE: After years of living in Rome and being exposed to their work I have absorbed some of that influence. To go back to what you were saying about my use of religious imagery, I think that the essay-like films of Pasolini and the ironic biographical memoirs in the cinema of Fellini were quite formative. The same is true for painters and musicians that I admire. I soak it all up. 

SW: With Africanized the storyline shifts quite unexpectedly throughout the video; it all begins at an airport and continues towards the Balkans, to you doing a headstand by the harbor, to a conference in Ouagadougou, to an afternoon in Brooklyn. In the end you were rewarded for your decision to not worry so much about how it would develop, but I am still interested in hearing a little more about the process.

TE: Throughout the editing I kept asking myself what is the relationship between these images. Well, there isn’t any, but when I gave the video the title Africanized it all made sense. The title itself made everything click into place. The scene in the Balkans, which is possibly the odd sequence out, is actually quite meaningful because there was a group of Gnawa musicians and dancers that were invited to an official presentation that I was participating in. You see people in suits and ties in a very formal setting suddenly reacting wildly to the hypnotic music of the Gnawa musicians. They were literally Africanized and I tried to reconstruct this transformation through the very rapid editing of the images.

SW: The work really does provide a powerful counterpoint to the idea of the Americanization of Africa, to the extent that there are barely any visible references to the Americanization of Africa.

TE: Well, knowing an Americanized world is what the video plays against. Maybe the rap music is something Americanized, but even that is ultimately seen as an Africanization.

SW: Or more specifically a Jamaicanization, influenced as it was by the tradition of Jamaican sound systems and dancehall music, but that is a topic for another discussion, which I look forward to returning to some other time.

Naturally, I am particularly interested in the Trip to Mount Zugualla segment, which I featured in the group exhibition Equatorial Rhythms in 2007. At that time I had only seen Trip to Mount Zugualla as it’s own work. Yet, for quite some time you had not been working with video installation, and returned to investigating the possibilities associated with video installation with this work. How did that come about?

TE: It really came about through Okwui Enwezor’s suggestion to make a work for his Snap Judgments exhibition at the International Center of Photography. He had seen Africanized at BAM and suggested to focus on the Zugualla episode in the film. So I developed it into a three-screen installation with a series of photographic compositions.

SW: Your ongoing interest in rhythm and sound, and the musical component as integral to almost all your work is quite interesting. Particularly in Trip to Mount Zugualla there are chimes, Bach’s Passion of Saint Matthew, Ice Cube and the distorted sounds in the beginning, which is very interesting in terms of breaking from a very straight forward narrative in time. 

TE: The distorted slow motion sounds at the beginning are yet another way of playing with the element of time. The idea was to use so called imperfections and faults to capture the human experience. The camera looking is basically just a metaphor for my eye; rather than the idea of capturing a pretty picture or a specific reality, it reflects the act of seeing. There is almost a distracted, uninterested gaze on the events, but of course it is never totally uninterested.

SW: In The Myth of the Flaneur Walter Benjamin speaks about allowing your observation to just be an observation and realizing that there is vitality and strength in that disenchanted observation. The importance of this role as observer is brought to another level with Return of Axum Obelisk, where you weave a historically meaningful event into an evocative visual tapestry of universal relevance.

TE: This video installation about the return to Ethiopia of war loot taken by Mussolini during the second world war was intentionally conceived as a monumental installation to commemorate an event which itself was a major engineering feat. My interest in making Return of the Axum Obelisk began in 1996, while filming the biographical portrait of my grandfather, who was on the committee for its restitution at the time. The filming of the whole process, from its dismantling in Rome to its transport to Axum and the subsequent phases of its re-erection are the visual basis for the video installation.

There is a dazzling array of stimuli in which the real and the mythological are fused as one. Past and present are intertwined around this monument that for years has been the focal point of much heated debate and to this day still ignites animated discussions in the political and the cultural arenas. The monument itself is of historical interest, but we also realize that we are also watching history in the making.

SW: How does the compositional structure mirror the underlying messages in the work?

TE: I was interested in a traditional Ethiopian narrative painting, which tells the story of the Queen of Sheba and the founding of the Axumite Empire, and I was interested in transforming this painting into a video installation by using its visual structure to bring the narrative into the present day through this transformation.

SW: Please elaborate on how you translate the narrative of the painting into the language of video.

TE: In the painting, time and movement are expressed as a series of tableaux in which the narrative recounts a tale of the obelisk’s origin and the founding of the Axumite Empire. In the installation, time and movement are transformed into a non-linear narrative that shows how the obelisk was returned, in the present day, to its original site in Axum.

SW: At its most basic level, viewers are invited to reconsider a naïve artisan painting that can be found in most tourist shops in Ethiopia, as a highly complex work of electronic art. Visually the work is highly celebratory, yet conceptually there is a darker subtext that permeates the work. How do these aspects play against each other?

TE: The aesthetic qualities are but a surface to an intriguing interplay of signs and symbols, while the polemics surrounding the subject of cultural restitution and postcolonial responsibilities are kept at a safe distance. This not only allows for an individual reading of the events but also draws the viewer into a labyrinth of concrete and abstract ideas anchored to the factual representation of the actions taking place. The viewer is invited to enter a dreamlike state, where memory and remembrance have undefined contours.

SW: And once we enter into this dreamlike state, what kinds of issues and questions are addressed?

TE: The irony of focusing our whole attention on the re-erection of an evidently phallic monument is not casual. A careful observation of the patterns and designs on the fifteen-screen structure will reveal that the only time a single image is repeated on all fifteen screens is with the apparent insignificant image of a truck, its two large wheels strategically composed beneath the proudly erected obelisk. The religious ceremonies invite us to reflect on the ideas of forgiveness and repentance, sin and absolution. Irony and visual puns abound throughout the work; the stylish umbrellas of the Italians on the worksite echo the multicolored umbrellas of the Ethiopian clergy, the three chief engineers parading around the work site on camel-back deliberately allude to the Biblical Magi, while the image of a hand raising up to reveal the obelisk can be seen as a parody of a fascist salute.

SW: Overall, how does this work reflect your own personal vision and understanding of Africa?

TE: Ultimately, in treating a delicate subject such as the Axum Obelisk my aim was to place its significance within the greater framework of intercultural relations. Obviously, the return of war loot from Italy to Ethiopia is interesting on many levels, but there is a lot more at play that gives the work added depth. For instance, I am fascinated by how the monument itself has changed in significance over time. It was born as a phallic symbol of power and became a symbol of religious presence in Ethiopia. It then became a symbol of colonial aggression when it was brought to Rome, and subsequently a symbol of postcolonial aid to Africa, placed as it was in front of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Finally, its dismantling and return to Ethiopia becomes yet another symbol. Maybe this signals the end of a post-colony or the beginning of something else. Certainly the interrelations of cultures have been affected by a series of violent events and some wounds will never heal, but it’s also interesting to see the mundane aspect of the real-life interrelations that take place on the work site during this historic moment when the obelisk is being brought back to its rightful place—an event that was not widely covered by mainstream media.

Because Africa is often imagined through images, it is in art, photography, and video that powerful changes can take place and the realities, not covered by traditional media, can be exposed.

Everything seems to come full circle with this work.

SW: Speaking of things coming full circle, before we finish our conversation, please tell me about your newest work.

TE: My most recent work, Kiss the Moment, is the result of my artist residency in Berlin in the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Artists-in-Berlin Program, and stems from a desire to make something about my experience in Germany. The idea started in my studio, where there is a very large window overlooking a small park. It struck me that this view of the park actually looks like an artwork in the German Romantic tradition of a fascination with nature. I thought it might be interesting to imitate that view as a starting point for an installation about Berlin, taking the window as a structural starting point and creating a work for eighteen video screens.

SW: So it’s conceived as a large-scale video installation?

TE: Yes, the work imitates the window of the studio, but it also contains a collage of impromptu events, from parties to artistic performances and improvised Weimar-style burlesque dances that took place inside the studio, so it’s both a window and a mirror, not just of the actual view and events but expanded to include other situations shot in the city. Taking its cue from the 1927 film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, it uses improvisation and improvised music to create a portrait of the city.

SW: Is Kiss the Moment similar in approach to previous work or does it signal a shift?

TE: There is a subtle shift from the instinctual construction of diverse ideas, present in previous works, to just relying on pure improvisation as a form in itself. There is also a stronger reaction against the cold conceptual basis of an art about art, a distancing from relying on easily definable concepts. I'm not Africanizing Berlin—that wouldn't be possible—but showing its eternal qualities and aspiration to being a cultural meeting ground. Visually the installation is a return to the pure sensual pleasures of the early modernist painters, but obviously revisited. It's clearly the result of a relaxed year in a highly stimulating town and again uses history and memories as springboards. Aspects of the work, however, are somewhat similar to Roma, another portrait of a city, which I made a couple of years earlier. Roma opens with a quote from Jung, who famously said that he never wanted to visit Rome for fear of the effect the city would have on his consciousness. It's interesting to think that there can be something so powerful about a city that it can actually hurt or damage one’s perception. I do believe he was right, in that there are things inscribed in its memory that can have this effect, things maybe not visible to the naked eye. When we go to Rome we might see the traffic and the outward beauty, but we don’t see the terrifying contradictions, the blood, and the darkest aspects of human nature, glossed over by the splendor of a Bernini fountain.

SW: You are essentially Roman, having lived there for so long, and with Roma you capture images that most Romans would take for granted, many of the sites that tourists would typically visit.

TE: Yes, the monuments are charged with a history that the Romans are blind to. There is a wandering approach reminiscent of Fellini’s Roma, but the presentation on three screens and the field-recording composition made by Alvin Curran make it a film about the effect of the city on the perceptions of a foreign visitor. Again in this film I'm both an outsider and insider, having lived in Rome for thirty years. The fearful element is the natural coexistence of contradictions—between good and evil, poetic and vulgar, and so on. When they coexist so naturally it is also very terrifying, and that is what I tried to show. Kiss the Moment conveys some of these aspects. I often approach a subject as an outsider, someone not expert on a given subject, and try to enter its essence through a reconstruction of my impressions and subjective experiences. I make videos about subjects I know very little about, in order to learn and find out about them rather than pretending to teach anybody anything. This is evident throughout my approach, and can be seen in Ways to a Void on Tibetan Buddhism, shot in the Himalayas, or the series of video installations made on the Islamic island of Lamu, or even Travelling Light, where I knew very little about the dance and theater world I was portraying, and Blood is not Fresh Water for that matter, where I knew very little of Ethiopian history and close to nothing about my grandfather’s role as a historian, since I had lost contact with him years before making the film about him. I think this approach keeps things fresh.

SW: You are now working as an advisor for a documentary filmmaker who is filming a documentary about Rastafarianism. The dream of the Promised Land of Ethiopia is integral to Rastafarian belief. This seems a very fitting project for you to be involved in. What is your role in the creative process?

TE: It is a classic documentary and I am helping to find ways to visualize the idea of a dream of the Promised Land, in a way that cannot be captured through words or interviews. Capturing imagery that evokes the longings of the deeply felt Rastafarian sentiments.

Of course, the whole idea of an imagined heaven represented in the dream of returning to Ethiopia would not necessarily differ from existence in Jamaica. The dream doesn’t really exist outside of the imagination, so it’s interesting to explore the power of the imagination over reality. One could even go so far as saying that the imagination of the Ethiopian people is greater, more important, “more true” than the image in the media of the hunger, the starvation, and the war. The spirit of the people and what they believe about themselves and how they relate to the world, that spirit is what enables people to live and survive. These are the things that don’t normally get shown while focusing on the hardships of reality. My aim is not to ignore this reality but rather to contextualize it within the framework of people’s dignity.

SW: In conclusion, if we were to sum up your work so far, what began as a very personal inquiry into the communication mechanisms and aesthetic qualities of video, combined with a more personal outlook on the ideas of a transnational identity, has evolved into an investigation of the pressing issues that play out in today’s media-saturated world, in which national boundaries have lost their relevance. Your ongoing interest in the influence of communication technology, on our perception and the possibilities of a worldview made up of the interactions of diverse cultural inputs, has become an increasingly central question, albeit still a problematic one, in a postcolonial globalized world.

This interview originally appeard in NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art, Duke University Press, Number 35 Fall / 2014

Events that took place in and around Moss in 1814, including the battles and peace negotiations during that summer and the signing of The Moss Convention in particular, are subtly contextualized in this exhibition. As such, the maps in this exhibition chart an intricate course that leads from a quaint little seaside town that had tremendous historical importance to Norway, to the wider context of international contemporary art.

Considering the extent to which Norway’s identity has changed during the past 200 years, and particularly at a time in Norwegian history when immigration quotas and limitations are repeatedly discussed, reviewed, and debated, it seems appropriate to place emphasis on a global perspective as we celebrate the bicentennial of the Norwegian constitution. The works of Mona Hatoum, Bouchra Khalili, Joyce Kozloff, Miler Lagos, Kevin Simón Mancera, Julie Mehretu, Fabio Morais, Vik Muniz, Rosana Ricalde and Susan Stockwell provide valuable insight in regards to social, political and cultural issues that are as relevant to the national identity of Norway as to any other nation.

Viewers are invited to cross boundaries of time and place to discover a world where politics overlap with poetics. This is a place where maps function as symbols and metaphors, and where the complexities and subtle nuances become visible if we take the time to read between the maps. Issues of domination, power and control, including the topics of colonialism and imperialism, are strong underlying themes throughout the exhibition. Mind the Map traces a trajectory that leads from traditional mappae mundi to a contemporary world where Google Maps are available to anyone, anywhere, anytime — from Oslo to Ouagadougou. This technological development is in the process of making traditional maps functionally obsolete, yet also more valuable visually and historically speaking. Since ancient times, maps have been treasured as much for their information as for their design and decoration. Clearly, what separates an ordinary map from a spectacular map is the amount of ornamentation, color and detail. What sets maps in contemporary art apart, is a combination of these visual aspects, coupled with the depth of implied meanings.

Joyce Kozloff is widely recognized for her active role in starting The Pattern and Decoration Movement in the 1970s. This movement was highly relevant as a reaction to Minimalism and Conceptualism, and was inspired by 1960s liberation politics, particularly feminism, as well as by African, Middle Eastern and Asian art. Since the early 1990s, Kozloff has focused much of her work on cartography, and the use of maps has become integral to her visual language. She appropriates images of old maps into works on paper, paintings and installations that are truly decorative, while they also address notions of power and hegemony.
In 1999, during a residency in Rome, she created Targets, a large-scale globe-shaped installation that counts among her most important works.  Inside the installation are twenty-four sections of painted maps depicting places such as Korea, Vietnam, El Salvador and Iraq, where US bombs hit civilian populations between 1945 and 2000. Targets is a visually mesmerizing work that points a very direct and critical finger at American global hegemony. The beautifully colored and intricately patterned acrylic paintings featured on the inside of the installation, are directly inspired by details from the actual maps that pilots used to hit their targets.  A circular opening resembles the oculus at the top of the Pantheon, hinting at Kozloff’s lifelong interest in history and culture.  In contrast to the vibrant interior, the exterior is left unpainted, almost as if it were the backside of a painting.   
As Lucy R. Lippard writes in an essay about Joyce Kozloff’s work:  “Maps are often deceptive and easily manipulated; they have always been the tools of imperialism and colonization, as well as unconscious cultural mirrors”.  These ideas are crucial to an understanding of Kozloff’s approach to maps. Although the maps are visually interesting, Kozloff is equally interested in what they represent.  She makes use of a wide variety of maps throughout her work, including cosmological charts, antique maps, topographical maps, nautical charts, nineteenth century real estate maps and even school maps. Naturally, these have different meanings and purposes, aspects of which are commented on through the work. For instance, in her Social Studies series, she makes use of outdated French school maps.  It is interesting to consider that classroom maps that once were widely accepted as accurate accounts of the world, have often been far from truthful and realistic. Historically speaking, this is precisely how maps have been used and misused for the purposes of power, domination and hegemony. 
The interconnectivity, as well as the complete disjuncture between the maps in Kozloff’s work, is as fascinating as how these maps relate to a wider context. She explains that “Maps have become a versatile structure for my long-term passions: history, culture, decorative and popular arts. By overlapping systems of information, I intuitively make connections which emerge in a literal and conceptual collage”. 
This could also be said about Rosana Ricalde’s work, although in Ricalde’s case, text plays an equally significant role. Ricalde first began integrating maps into her visual language around 2006, and has created numerous works based on maps of cities, from Rio to Paris, as well as world maps. The streets in these maps are made of words extracted from various texts, ranging from Foucault to Calvino.
From a distance the words are almost invisible, and even up close the words are mere fragments of text, extracted from a logical context. As such, these works map out a deconstruction of Calvino’s Invisible Cities, challenging our understanding of visible reality, while literally forcing us to question what we think we see. The underlying meanings, and the direct link to Calvino in particular, is barely discernable from a distance. Beyond the understated beauty and obvious symbolism, there is a strong existential undercurrent that transforms these works into something far more poetic than an actual map. The inherent opposition between the intangible imaginary world of Calvino and the straightforward factual nature of a map, creates a fascinating play of opposites that says as much about the nature of the original text as it does about Ricalde’s ongoing fascination with books, language, text and words.
In the transition from language to visual form, Rosana Ricalde deconstructs the original text and removes the grammatical logic of the words to create a story that is clearly more visual than linguistic. Extracted from the original context, the words are stripped of meaning, and no longer serve a narrative function. And yet there is a story told in these works, even if it is not overtly narrative. This is the beauty of Ricalde’s maps; while they echo the words of Calvino, more importantly they capture the essence of his work while simultaneously unraveling and deconstructing the original narrative. The logical sequence of words, as they appear in Calvino’s narrative, is destroyed in favor of visual logic that speaks more about the underlying existential and philosophical messages of the book, rather than a documentation of the actual cities described by Marco Polo or the events that take place.  Rosana Ricalde’s particular interest in the travels of Marco Polo is also evident in other works. Mind the Map features Atlas Marco Polo, 2009, a work that includes passages of text that are cut out from the book The Travels of Marco Polo, the 13th-century travelogue written by Rustichello da Pisa from stories told by Marco Polo while they were in prison together.  Long ribbons of this text are carefully laid out over an open atlas, to create an intricate work that is a prime example of Ricalde’s ongoing interest in both books and maps.
Julie Mehretu is renowned for her large-scale paintings and drawings where architecture is deconstructed, fragmented, overlapped and reconstructed resulting in intricate maps that are more political than orientational. Throughout Mehretu’s work, architecture is used as a metaphor for other issues: colonialism, power structures, social relations, notions of inside and outside, the relation between the public and private realms, as well as the spatial definition of various social hierarchies. This includes processes of domination, oppression and disempowerment that are defined by architecture.
Beyond the immediate visual appeal of her intricate, architecturally inspired visual language, Mehretu’s work resonates on a highly theoretical level. A lecture given by Michel Foucault in 1967, “Of Other Spaces”, provides valuable insight in relation to the geopolitical underpinnings of Julie Mehretu’s work. In this famous lecture, Foucault argued against the traditional notion of linear time, asserting that concepts of time have been understood in various ways, under different historical circumstances.  His theory relates to an understanding of space and spaces over time. He spoke at length about two types of space — utopias and heterotopias. A utopia is understood as an unreal, imagined space (such as Italo Calvino’s fictive cities).  In contrast, a heterotopia is a real space that is simultaneously mythic and real (such as a sports stadium). It should be noted that Julie Mehretu doesn’t implement architectural language simply as a metaphor about space. She is specifically interested in space as it relates to power. Nonetheless, Foucault’s words are relevant to Julie Mehretu’s work:
“We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein.” 
Julie Mehretu’s paintings and works on paper can be seen as imaginary maps that are carefully constructed from divergent, nonrelated elements that come together in a meaningful way. As such, the idea of map as metaphor is particularly relevant. Concepts of simultaneity and juxtaposition are central unifying factors that bring architecture, space, line, form, color and different notions of time together into paradoxical structures that are distanced and accessible, logical and chaotic, public and private. At the visual intersection between all these opposing factors, we can decipher endless possible meanings as quickly as they might disappear into a completely different trajectory on the exact same canvas.  An idea of where we might be headed on these imaginary maps, is not nearly as important as our experience of looking at the works and appreciating the intricate details that make Julie Mehretu’s work as meaningful as it is formally appealing.
Mona Hatoum shares Julie Mehretu’s gift for creating beautiful artworks that reveal endless layers of possible meanings.  Hatoum had her artistic breakthrough in the mid-1980s, when she created a series of live actions and video works involving direct physical confrontation with the audience, and often the use of her own body. Since the early 1990s her work has shifted towards large-scale installations and sculptures that balance a very fine line between conflicting emotions such as desire and revulsion, fear and fascination. Her works inspire viewers to consider issues that often play with notions of private versus public. Hatoum consistently addresses topics related to conflict, displacement and uncertainty through the use of familiar domestic objects that she transforms into threatening and sometimes dangerous sculptures. Everyday objects ranging from kitchen utensils to a baby´s cot, a rug or swings, are crafted into delicate, often painfully fragile objects of beauty, whose visual appeal is only exceeded by their deep conceptual, political and social meanings.
The two works featured in Mind the Map are perfect examples of Hatoum’s approach to objects and installations. The seats of Balançoires, 2010, are made of sandblasted glass plates with street maps of Beirut. The work weighs heavy with paradox; the quiet, poetic beauty of the glass seats is shattered by the threat of what would happen if the swings were ever to touch. Any associations to lighthearted child’s play are completely erased by the very direct political message. This work is exemplary of Hatoum’s ability to create works that attract and repel at the same time. Two beautifully crafted swings, constructed with glass seats and stainless steel chains hang delicately from the ceiling. However, the swings are reactive to almost any gentle movement in the space, and fundamentally unstable. Of particular interest are the actual maps that are carved and sand blasted onto the glass seats, featuring a map of East Beirut on one swing, and a map of West Beirut on the other. Since the two opposing sides of the city have, in the past, been caught up in a bloody sectarian conflict, the implication here is one of possible, impending disaster.
This is typical of Hatoum’s approach to visual art and her particular use of common objects to reveal various power mechanisms and social or political injustices. Baluchi (blue and orange), 2008, is another beautiful example of work that is as complex as it is to the point. The carpet looks as if in a state of disintegration as large patches of the weave appear to have been moth-eaten or somehow worn-out. On second glance one can see that the apparently random patches come together to form a recessed world map. The geographical outline of the continents creates a lasting impression that is ultimately left open for the viewer to interpret.

Throughout Mona Hatoum’s work what is implied or suggested is far more important than anything definitive. Hatoum describes it best in her own words in an interview with Janine Antoni for BOMB Magazine:
“I want the work in the first instance to have a strong formal presence, and through the physical experience to activate a psychological and emotional response. In a very general sense, I want to create a situation where reality itself becomes a questionable point. Where one has to reassess their assumptions and their relationship to things around them. A kind of self-examination and an examination of the power structures that control us: Am I jailed or the jailer? The oppressed or the oppressor? Or both? I want the work to complicate these positions and offer an ambiguity and ambivalence rather than concrete and sure answers. An object from a distance might look like a carpet made out of lush velvet, but when you approach it you realize it’s made out of stainless steel pins which turns it into a threatening and cold object rather than an inviting one. It’s not what it promises to be. So it makes you question the solidity of the ground you walk on, which is also the basis on which your attitudes and beliefs lie. When my work shifted from the obviously political, rhetorical attitude into bringing political ideas to bear through the formal and the aesthetic, the work became more of an open system.” 

Issues of displacement and migration conveyed in Mona Hatoum’s work are also recurring themes for Bouchra Khalili. Khalili is recognized as an artist who works primarily with video, and has been working both in single channel and installation form for well over a decade. Her videos typically blur standard distinctions between cinema and visual art, documentary film and experimental work. She often conveys the intricacies related to the experience of migration in the transition from one place to another. Her artistic process involves documenting various places of migratory passage, through images that convey compelling narratives that speak of an ever-changing world map where the everyday lives of a steadily increasing number of individuals is defined by displacement, migration, exile and the plight for a better existence. She captures the human dimension of the places she visits with the life stories of individuals who, as a result of emigration, are literally changing the ethnic map of the world. The importance of empowerment, self-expression, and the power of speech are integral aspects of these works.

A recurring theme throughout her work is the notion of a passage or journey, often within the Mediterranean but also across the Atlantic. The places and settings that she chooses to film represent territorial, social, and political margins. The Mapping Journey Project, 2008-2011, a video installation comprised of eight single channels, is typical of her approach. With this work she conveys the complex individual stories that are part of the experience of migration and exile today. Each segment features an individual who conveys a clandestine journey that is ultimately an expression of resistance. These individuals are inventing roads that challenge geography as shaped by power, and redefining the maps that are drawn from the perspective of that power. Rather than conveying a straightforward account of their stories, in a typical documentary style, and instead of filming their faces directly, Khalili opts to let them narrate their stories while the camera focuses on other details that relate to their surroundings and experience. She highlights each vignette by filming the hands of her subjects as they sketch their journey on a map, creating a tremendously powerful metaphor for immigrants who are forced into an invisible existence.

Taking the idea of mapping one step further, Bouchra Khalili created The Constellations, 2011, a work inspired by celestial maps that also relate to geographical maps. The Constellations is the final chapter of The Mapping Journey Project, intended to reveal the poetic dimension of the whole project. The work is directly inspired by Michel Foucault’s essay Lives of Infamous Men that relates to the whole idea of singular lives that become poems through some strange twist of fate. The Constellations includes eight silkscreen prints that trace a migratory map that is transformed into a map of constellations. There is both haunting distance and timeless beauty in the transition from a geographical map to an imaginary celestial map, made up of cities that appear in the place of stars or planets. The work cleverly questions the relation between the earth and the universe, or as Khalili might describe it, between the sea and the sky.  In a recent interview with Dorothea Schoene for the Ibraaz website, Khalili describes the unique significance of this aspect of her work in her own words.

“Many of my videos also refer to the sea as metaphor and metonymy, of a passing space, a space that has no landmarks, a liquid labyrinth dedicated to drift and ultimately a metaphor of exile. But there is also this political dimension to the sea, which is more obvious to certain parts of the globe - it is also a cemetery containing the bodies of those who tried to cross it illegally: in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the Sicilian coast for example, also off Malta, off Greece on the borders with Turkey and in the Atlantic on the borders between the Caribbean and the United States. This also relates to what I attempt with The Constellations. I aimed to produce an ambiguous space that refers both to the sea and the sky, blurring the limits between them, as well as blurring the limit between borders: literally erasing them, by translating the drawings of clandestine journeys into constellations of stars.” 
A more direct use of actual maps, in this case found in atlases, is seen in Fabio Morais’ work. While Morais frequently works with maps, he is perhaps most widely recognized for his transformation of books into sculptures and installations. His ongoing fascination with books as objects, translates beautifully into an installation that relates to maps in their book form — the atlas. Anyone with the slightest interest in maps or cartography, born long enough before the internet era to truly appreciate the value of a beautifully detailed atlas, should enjoy his transformation of atlases into installations and objects that change the world map completely, essentially erasing all major landmasses in favor of oceans and seas.
Encontro de Mares (Meeting of the Seas), 2006, consists of a pile of atlases that are opened to pages where there is more water than land, which creates a fascinating image of the world made up of varying shades of blue and green. An island appears in the center of the installation, comprised of dictionaries in approximately 20 different languages: Portuguese, Indigenous Yanomami, Spanish, French, Italian, English, German, Greek, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic and Yoruba. This is a beautiful metaphor that relates to the importance of text and language for communication and understanding between cultures. This island of dictionaries/language/knowledge situated in an endless sea, reads almost like a Borgesian tale, and captures the imagination in regards to an imaginary place that is defined by multiple languages rather than just one or a few.                
Oferenda à Iemanjá para um Feliz Ano Novo (Offering to Iemanjá for a Happy New Year), 2007, creates a powerful counterpoint to Encontro de Mares. This work is composed of one small atlas, and as with Encontro de Mares, the continents and islands are carefully cut out to reveal nothing but water. In the Yorubá tradition, Iemanjá is known as the mother of fish. Interestingly, in the transition to Brazil, she became known as the goddess of the sea. Brazilians typically celebrate the New Year by offering flowers, drinks and other gifts to this goddess. Morais’ formal approach to this work is highly reminiscent of his other book-based sculptures and installations. Throughout his work, Fabio Morais investigates the deconstruction of language, and plays with the mapping of text and image to construct a visual vocabulary that relates to memory, language and identity. Frequently using writers, poets and critics as the basis of his works, Morais appropriates text, language and image and uses it as a place of negotiation between artist and spectator. For Migracão (Migration), 2006, Morais transformed books into small sculptures, carving out impressions of butterflies from each of the books. Meaningful text disappears in favor of a strong visual image. The powerful and immediately recognizable shape and form of the butterflies, turns these books into small treasures, similar to how he transformed an ordinary atlas into a beautiful offering for the goddess Iemanjá.
Taking a step away from the use of existing maps brings us to the work of Vik Muniz. What appears to be a fairly straightforward image of a world map, turns out to be a photograph of a massive world map constructed out of garbage. The story behind the triptych WWW, 2008, (From the series Pictures of Junk) and the intricacies behind the creation of this particular map, are what make this work so powerful. Unlike many of the other participating artists in this exhibition, Vik Muniz doesn’t typically work with maps or cartography.
Vik Muniz is known for his use of photography to create images out of non-traditional materials — ranging from chocolate and peanut butter to dirt, toys and garbage. For the Pictures of Junk series, Muniz made use of all kinds of garbage, ranging from crushed soda cans to discarded clothing, old tires and outdated computers, to create captivating images inspired by master paintings. Working on the outskirts of Rio, in a space the size of a basketball court, Muniz collaborated with art students from the favela on this project. Each photograph took a month and a half to create, and began with a basic outline of an image that he sketched on the floor in advance. Working with a laser pointer from a scaffold situated high above the floor, Muniz then directed his crew in placing various bits of garbage onto the floor to create the desired image.  Finally, he captured the image from this vantage point using a large-format camera.
When it comes to appropriating from art history and adding something significant to the equation that is of social and societal relevance, Vik Muniz really stands out. Ultimately his stunning iconographical re-interpretations help unveil what is rotten beneath the surface of our society. When he chose to re-create and photograph masterpieces from art history with the use of garbage as his paintbrush, he not only moved some of the most notable icons of art history into the present, he also moved people’s lives in the process.
The Pictures of Junk series stands out within contemporary art practice, particularly in terms of Muniz’s long-term collaboration with the residents of Jardim Gramacho, Rio de Janeiro’s and Latin America’s largest garbage dump. As conveyed in the award-winning documentary film, Waste Land, (2010) these large-scale arrangements of garbage feature portraits of the catadores who live and work to collect and sell recyclable and scrap materials. With the help of the catadores, who were paid for scavenging, selecting, and organizing the refuse material, Muniz created images of Old Master paintings using buckets, fridges, clothes, plastic bottles, toilet seats, wheels and rusted chains and other junk to make versions of well-known works such as Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son; Caravaggio, Narcissus; David, The Death of Marat; Millet, The Sower; Picasso, Woman Ironing, and Guercino, Atlas. It could be said that although WWW, 2008 is perhaps not quite as romantic as the other works inspired by master paintings, it bears a tremendously powerful message regarding human consumption and waste; the continued and increasing accumulation of waste will eventually change the outline of the world map forever.
Susan Stockwell, an artist who works with maps and other metaphors, also addresses environmental concerns through her work. Africa, 2012, is a perfect example. Comprised of PC motherboards, this work makes specific reference to the 'digital maps' laid out on these technological panels, and the physical shape of the continent that has made the construction of these motherboards possible. It is fairly common knowledge that many of the rare and essential materials used to create computers and mobile phones, are mined in Africa. In the worst instances, the labor conditions for the workers involved in this process are an infringement on human rights, which is especially shocking considering the level of technology that these individuals make possible.

In using discarded maps and other materials to create beautifully crafted objects, sculptures and installations, Susan Stockwell’s works invariably convey the importance of recycling and ecology. Her 2013 installation Sail Away at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, is a perfect example of her unique talent for transforming detritus such as maps, paper money and tickets into visual art with deep political and social implications. This is also the case with Imperial Quilt, 2005, which is comprised of maps of the world collected from old atlases that are hand stitched into a traditional patchwork quilt. This particular map is sewn together with a strong political thread; featuring the Middle East at the center and a swatch of America woven into every continent.
Also featured in Mind the Map is Highland Dress, 2010. This work is part of a series of life-size dresses constructed from antiquated maps and currency that relate specifically to aspects of British history. This particular dress is composed of ordinance survey maps of the Scottish Highlands, addressing the issue of English colonization and occupation of Scotland over 300 years. This is particularly relevant at the moment, with talk of Scottish independence. As is often the case with Stockwell’s work, no detail is left to chance, and the use of military maps to create an ornate woman’s dress is no exception. Susan Stockwell can be described as a sculptor who makes subtly political work about materials and their inherent content and histories, with injustice and inequality as overarching themes. In her appropriation of maps and atlases, the geographic boundaries defined on maps are blurred in favor of conveying strong political, social, ecological and feminist issues.
Miler Lagos’ video Lat 65.31 N Long 114.13 W, 2011, relates to a very specific point on the world map. His works are typically inspired by observations of nature, as well as an exploration of various phenomena that affect the balance of nature. During an artistic residency in Canada in 2011, Miler Lagos investigated the experiences of early Arctic explorers who contributed to the study and knowledge of natural resources in this remote region of the world. Inspired by this research, he created Lat 65.31 N Long 114.13 W in the same geographical place where nineteenth century expeditions took place to find the English explorer Sir John Franklin.
According to Lagos: “Lat 65.31 N Long 114.13 W involves an inquiry about the place of the gaze towards nature itself, an expansion of the outreach of the visual experience that turns landscape into a sublime spectacle”.  What makes this work so interesting is the idea of geography and landscape not in general terms, but as they relate to a specific coordinate on a map, as well as the implied relation between reality and representation. 
Attention is shifted from mapping in the most literal sense, to focus instead on a very specific geographical point on a map. The exact coordinates indicate the location where the film was shot, while many of the sequences bring to mind the most contemporary of all maps — satellite maps. The contrast between an antiquated paper map and an exact digital image of almost any location on the earth, is interesting in itself. The work reveals the extent to which our perception of maps as definitive, truthful documents has changed through the years.  Our understanding of this work is ultimately affected by our familiarity with satellite maps, but what really captures our attention over time is the quiet beauty of the work. Just as the traditional maps seen throughout this exhibition aren’t simply maps, this video is far more than a complication of images that you might find on Google Maps. Additional layers of meaning, various notions of time and place, a strong link between past and present and a sense of what this very specific geographical point on the map represents, all make this work resonate on both a visual and theoretical level.
With a map of Latin America as the starting point, Kevin Simón Mancera’s project La Felicidad (Happiness), 2012, charts a pilgrimage to seven different towns called Felicidad. This particular work evokes the underlying sense of romanticism and hope tied to almost any journey, especially when traveling to unknown places. Mancera’s project involved a very unusual road trip. He traveled to places that are of little interest aside from the fact that they all bear the same name. With sketchbooks and a camera he was prepared to document his discoveries, as if he were a nineteenth century explorer, and the results are truly captivating. His painstakingly detailed and often humorous drawings bring life and humanity to these out-of-the-way places on the map.  The project features seven sketchbooks filled with drawings and comments about his travels, while a photograph of each of the seven places hangs on the wall.
La Felicidad involves an extremely subtle reference to mapping. This work captures the open and fluid nature of an exhibition that enables us to move in and out of time, through completely different geographic regions, from the historical to the contemporary, from medium to medium, without ever losing the realization that we are navigating uncharted terrain. We are met with an approach to contemporary art, which defies all definitive boundaries, definitions or strict interpretations. With these maps as our guide, our individual journeys can lead in any direction. It is in the choices and observations we make along the way that we can make sense of these disparate and diverging maps and world views. This will hopefully inspire us to think beyond the boundaries of our own national borders, to consider just how strikingly similar these different maps and world views really are. It turns out that what appears to be completely disconnected is in fact completely interconnected, as if we were transported directly into an imaginary map created by Jorge Luis Borges.

S. As an artist who has been greatly inspired by literature and poetry, I would like to begin with a quote from Rainer-Maria Rilke that brings to mind so many aspects of your work. “How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”  The sense of hope and magical transformation that sets the tone for this poem is also quite evident in your work. Can you describe the significance of hope and longing throughout your work? 

U. I find hope through my work method, when I let the chaos overcome me. I work through the chaos by painting, the results of which are seen in the final painting. Transforming what is ugly, bad and destructive into something beautiful is the ultimate source of inspiration for my paintings. I find consolation and meaning in that process.

S. Your paintings are definitely not limited to your own personal experience. You capture the bigger picture of humanity. Is this what makes you so fearless about revisiting topics from different perspectives and reworking certain paintings over and over?   

U. As Picasso famously said: First you do what you know then you can create. You can’t build your life on an earlier experiment; one has to constantly reevaluate in order to move on.

S. Of course, when you reevaluate your work it doesn’t simply involve moving on to a new style or approach, you actually return to perfectly executed existing works and paint over them to create new works.  That’s not something that too many artists have the courage to do. It’s one thing to move on, to question previous approaches, but you literally create new works from old works, and thereby revisit old themes from completely new perspectives.

U. I become afraid of myself when I don’t see anything but what I saw before. I challenge myself in this way. It is important for me to own my forms, my thoughts. Art is the only place where I can be completely free, and to rework existing paintings is an important part of the creative process for me.

S. Aftermath is a truly monumental work that brings together many of the elements of your earlier work, while also signaling a slightly new direction for you. What are your feelings about this particular work?

U. It was a long and difficult process for me to find consolation in that painting. When I look at it now as a finished work I see the delicate balance between restlessness and clam that I was searching for. Aftermath became a painting that somehow consoles the viewer, the silence one is left with after a destructive event

S. In addition to the sheer formal beauty of your compositions, one of the things that I am most fascinated by in your paintings is their encyclopedic quality. The references in your paintings relate to everything including philosophy, history, mythology, archeology, literature, poetry, art history, architecture, and even music. In this respect, although your paintings also relate to personal experience, they are accessible and relevant for everyone.    

U. I guess you could say that it’s the backbone of everything I do, being inspired by something greater than myself.

S. Opus Incertum is another key work that I would like to hear more about. From what I understand, the work is directly inspired by the building style of the ancient Romans. What is the deeper significance of this? 

U.  Opus Incertum is a term for a specific non-geometric masonry work that the Romans were known for. The image in this painting illustrates just that: a road or foundation that has been built with stones of different sizes and shapes. The absence of regularity is something I relate to since my painting compositions evolve as I work. In this particular work, a wooden structure is in the process of being built upon the stone foundation. It is a work in progress, with no plan of which direction it will take. I like working in a state of uncertainty.

S. Italo Calvino’s seminal book Invisible Cities continues to be an important source of inspiration for you. As far back as 2003 I wrote about his influence on your work in the catalogue text for Sentimento del Tempo. As with Calvino’s Invisible Cities, there are strong recurring elements throughout your work that ultimately add up to various descriptions of the same topic – accounts of a life journey. How would you say this has changed along the way? Clearly your perspectives have changed, and how would you say this has affected your visual language?

U. I find a certain similarity between Calvino’s writing and my paintings. In the book Invisible Cities there is no end or beginning, only fragments that are somehow tied together through memories and dreams from the past and present. His ability to open up the text while simultaneously keeping it mysterious and closed really fascinates what I would call my visual voice. It can almost be compared to how the Cubists see the world. Calvino’s playfulness and wonder will always be an important source of inspiration for me, particularly in his ability to capture notions of reality that you want to see but that are only figments of the imagination.

S. Your fictive urban landscapes immediately bring to mind the landscapes described by Marco Polo in Invisible Cities, where the distinction between fantasy and reality is completely blurred. Please tell me more about your lifelong interest in that particular book.

U. Life itself is all about facts and limitations, which is why I am not interested in paintings that provide solid answers. In Calvino’s text I find visual freedom, comparable to being in a state of trance. When I read his text I am free to see the world from a completely liberating perspective.

All in all, there is a sense of order in the chaos that reflects the individual’s role in the universe. Each painting posits a new question, while there is a distinct sense of moving towards a definitive answer. Of course, as Italo Calvino has famously questioned, “The day I understand all symbols, will I finally succeed in being master of my domain?” Although the symbols seem to make more and more sense, there really is no definitive answer.

S. And yet with each new juxtaposition of various elements, new layers of meaning emerge.

With the exhibition Inside Out you introduced various objects that served to emphasize particularly important details within your paintings. While you had played with these kinds of ideas previously, it wasn’t until Inside Out that you really tested the full potential of combining objects with your paintings, and literally turned everything inside out. It’s surprising to see how the juxtapositions of various objects can change the entire context of the work. Important aspects of dramatic compositions are paraphrased in the careful and precise placement of found objects. What can you say about the process of combining objects with your paintings?

U. Actually, it all began with Sentimento del Tempo at Henie Onstad Art Centre. That’s when I began working with objects that I constructed into installations and also with texts.  

S. There was a text that extended the entire length of an exhibition wall and you placed a large installation of church bells in the middle of the room. Yet, there is a difference between that and what you are doing today. Now you are creating something more contained. Rather than paintings that are accompanied by objects and text, you integrate your paintings into many small installations. You create a dialogue between paintings, texts, and objects that speaks of an ongoing search for existential answers. 

U. Yes, dialogue is an important word. In preparing for the exhibition Opus incertum at Haugar I finished the paintings well in advance. That gave me the opportunity to give more thought to the objects I had chosen.  The need to create installations has become increasingly important with each new exhibition. There is something magical about it, a means of expanding the horizon, opening up other worlds. It almost feels like something cosmic that refers to the greater universe.

S. With Inside Out it seems that the further you pushed the installations, the more fascinating the results.   

U. That was a fantastic feeling! Naturally, I am always bound to the canvas and painting. It is my real challenge, but I have allowed myself to be more free and playful. In fact, I have tons of stuff in the basement that I dream about constructing into installations. In a way, the quietness of a painting is transformed to a visual dialogue with the very simple addition of various objects. I guess you could say that I conduct experiments in the form of dialogues.

S. This process of adopting what is cast aside, things that were created with a specific purpose that have subsequently been thrown away, and giving them a new purpose that pertains to the bigger picture of life is really quite touching.

U. The way I see it, the objects somehow lose their identity and gain an almost comical significance that relates to the universe. Although there is a certain level of craziness to it all, it isn’t just nonsense.

S. Well, obviously there is a real connection between the objects and the paintings that becomes an integral part of the overall visual vocabulary. I have seen this in your work time and time again. Whether you integrate a mirror or sand or a constructed table or a ruler or a tattered piece of cloth, there is never a question as to why on earth you placed a particular object in relation to a particular painting.  

U. The way a painting is painted is really important, but if it is too intellectual, too overthought, too technically proficient, it’s not quite as powerful. It becomes static. There is a level of naiveté that is important to my paintings, and that is something that relates to an inner need or drive, not only the formal aspects of a painting. Perhaps this is why I find it so liberating to work with objects.

S. You really have managed to liberate yourself from your own paintings. You recently told me that you now feel a need to make an installation without any paintings, which is really quite interesting because that will probably lead to new discoveries that will then become the source of inspiration for new paintings. As you say, it’s about finding the way into the paintings, to then find the way out.   

U. As I mentioned to you when we were installing Inside Out, maybe I will paint an installation in the end. Yet, I can only work with installations when I have conquered painting. The installations emphasize a reference that might otherwise go unnoticed. That kind of freedom only comes after I am fully satisfied with the paintings, and the same holds true for text. The texts come afterwards, almost like a subtext.

S. So, I guess you know you can stop painting when words and texts begin entering into your mind and into the visual vocabulary, and when you start becoming intrigued with objects. 

U. To understand the inside one has to explain the outside, or was it the reverse? Either way, this is reflected in the texts and objects that accompany my paintings. 

S. So without creating paintings first, which give you the sense of confidence and security to play with text and words, how will you create a room filled only with installations?

U. I am not sure. I just know that at some point I want to create an installation that doesn’t relate to my paintings.     

S.  It also seems important that through the objects, visual elements are brought into the viewer’s physical space, thereby making the works more immediately accessible. 

U. This kind of balance and tension really fascinates me, whether it’s between image and text, paintings and objects, or words and objects. In The Storytellers I placed an axe in the table, and inscribed the word “silenzio” on the side. There is both pain and playfulness conveyed in the combination of this gesture and word. When I play with objects and words I can express something before thinking it through formally. There is an aspect of uncertainty in not knowing what will happen that evokes the certainty of being uncertain.

S. This certainty of being uncertain is also reflected in your tendency to rework previously existing works. Falling House is a perfect example. Why did you feel the need to tweak this work, and in what way do the slight changes transform the work?

U. It’s difficult to explain, but I felt an urgency to fine-tune it. I had to find a new voice in that particular painting. I wanted to capture the feeling that a painting represents more than what meets the eye.  We see objects, but they change as we look at them, and it is my job to create order out of this chaos. By creating and recreating works I am literally processing the ideas that are constantly running through my mind from new and different perspectives. 

S. What did you change specifically?

U. I opened the painting and let the light in, which ultimately brought it back to life.

S. So reworking a painting is an integral part of a search for answers even though one never finds a definitive answer.

U. Whatever it is that I do through my art, it has to be bigger than me. The visual result must be so powerful that it makes me feel small. Finding a voice and letting it grow expansively is a vital part of my creativity. The more I allow myself to add a physical dimension to the paintings, with the addition of found objects, I am also discovering that there is more plasticity, a proximity to humanity that really resonates on so many levels for me.

S. At times it seems that you bear the weight of the entire universe on your shoulders, yet there is always a subtle hint of humor that works as a ray of light in the darkness.

U. I guess you could say it’s all about relief. In the painting Echo of the Walls and the triptych Voices from Behind the objects come closer to something intimate and tactile. One could almost say that the objects contain relief, and I think that is what my work is all about – finding a way to let go of the pain.

S. And through your paintings you transform the questions in your mind into a comprehensive visual narrative?

U. Yes, that’s exactly what I do.

S. The recurring theme of various perceptions of reality, the sense that things that are on the verge of disappearing at the exact same moment as they appear also brings to mind Jorge Luis Borges, and The Circular Ruins in particular. “One’s perception of reality could be an elaborate illusion”. What are your thoughts about this?

U. For me there is no distinction between reality and illusion. I understand that this is wrong, but that’s how I want it. I don’t want to be rational because I build my art on intuition.

S. Everyday elements ground your paintings in reality and also ensure that the paintings don’t become too illusionistic. We see this in Aftermath for instance, where a graffiti-like image of a woman who resembles Aung San Suu Kyi gives the work contemporaneity, and also in Studio Visitor, where a small landscape painting hangs on the wall. These kinds of logical, everyday details somehow make the paintings less surreal and more credible.

U. For me it is important to have a root in reality when I dive into the imaginary world of painting. In Aftermath I painted the woman as a huge guardian hovering over the scene. In Studio Visitor the small painting represents a world outside my studio. It is from a photograph that I have on my studio wall and shows the dramatic volcanic eruption on Sumatra in 2013.

S. Throughout your career you have been inspired by the possibilities that lie in the balance between text and image. Particularly after The Storytellers I have also come to think of you as a storyteller. I tend to think of you as a visual poet as well. You use objects and words meticulously and sparingly to express a powerful thought or sentiment, in the same way that a poet uses words. The balance between image and text throughout your work extends beyond an interest in playing with words. For instance, the painting Aftermath is coupled with a text by Titus Lucretius Carus. Can you tell me more about this source of inspiration?

U. The words that appear on the left side of the painting are from Titus Lucretius Carus’ epic philosophical poem “De rerum natura”, about the nature of things. That poem has followed me since 1983, when I used it in a series of charcoal drawings about the war in Beirut. With Aftermath I rediscovered the power of that poem in terms of being an interpretation of the world, and notions of catastrophe, doubt and hope.

Words are incredibly important to me. When I was a child I stammered. I was afraid of words. Words were my enemy, so I drew instead. I enjoy painting more than writing, but I really enjoy the possibilities of playing with a sentence or a few carefully chosen words. I find pleasure in finding words that belong to the work.

S. So in a way, words function in the same way as the found objects, adding an additional level of meaning, or means of emphasis. Almost like punctuation. 

U. Interestingly, the more I use words the more I dare to do with the visual language as well. 

S. Which in turn affects the viewer’s understanding of your work. By adding carefully selected words, sentences or poems, the viewer gains access to additional layers of meaning. With the combination between text and image everything falls magically into place.   

U. I want to create something that really means something to others. I tend to think big, and often reflect on existential issues. Maybe this comes from being alone in my thoughts day in and day out. I seek to bring something else into my visual vocabulary. One really has to bring other voices into the dialogue, and for me this often means being inspired by authors, poets, and great thinkers. 

S. With the written word you help the viewer to better understand the universal relevance of your work. The same holds true for the objects that you find and carefully place in relation to your paintings. You described it to me once as “going into the painting to then find your way out again”.

U. The paintings and objects represent two identities that compliment one another. 

S. Above all, what do you strive to express through your artwork?

U. I seek to create something that is alive in the sense that it evokes a feeling of an inner restlessness. There is a heartbeat in what I do. As an artist I spend a lot of time in the studio alone with my own thoughts, but what I do does not only relate to myself, it relates to the individual’s place in the universe. At least that’s my hope.

S. In conclusion, is there anything else that you would like to say that might sum up your work as an artist?

U. If I were to explain what my work is all about I would say that it’s simply about a need to create. What happens between various elements is really fascinating to me.  Do dream and reality really meet or is it simply a thought that cannot be explained?  Art doesn’t always have to be understood, but it should evoke something primal, natural, overpowering. Seriousness and humor, playfulness are all part of the equation.  I can’t continue to do this for the rest of my life unless there is a higher meaning connected to painting pictures. It has to be larger than life, universal, and timeless.

S. For me that is precisely what keeps your work as relevant and interesting today.