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Past Colonies – Present Empires: How “Post” is Postcolonialism?

The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik
March 24 – April 16, 2006

In Reykjavik, an empty 1990s-style office floor above our institutional partner, The Living Art Museum, was turned into an art gallery for the duration of the show. This first exhibition in the series revisited the past and investigated the dynamics of colonialism on both sides of the colonized/colonizer divide. It looked at the degree to which such dynamics are still at play today. Doing this, the exhibition pointed to a complex field of conflicting interests and questioned the possibility of postcolonial “truths.”

The exhibition was accompanied by the film program Silver Screen Resistance.

Participating Artists

Julie Edel Hardenberg (Greenland)
Inuk Silis Høegh & Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen (Greenland/Denmark & Denmark)
Maryam Jafri (Pakistan/USA/Denmark)
Steve Ouditt (Trinidad, The West Indies)
Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir (Iceland)
Kara Walker (USA)

 Click polar bear to see video tour of the exhibition (8:20 min.)

JULIE EDEL HARDENBERG
Born 1971 in Nuuk, Greenland. Lives and works in Nuuk

Julie Edel Hardenberg holds a MA in Art Theory and Communication and has attended The Nordic School of Art in Kokkola, Finland; The Art Academy in Trondheim, Norway; and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her work explores notions of cultural diversity, difference, and coherence as counter-poles to the political currents of nationalism and the prevalent definition of types from the mass media. She is a product of two cultures herself, having a Danish father and a Greenlandic mother. Julie released the children’s pixie- and pointing book Haluu, Hej, Hello in 2003 and was earlier this year nominated for the Nordic Prize of Literature with her second book release The Quiet Diversity from 2005. In addition to her curriculum vitae – which counts international exhibitions, recognitions, and public commissions – Julie has alongside her artistic practice worked with scenography and installations for both feature films, theater plays, and dancing shows. [Julie Edel Hardenberg]

In her foreword to The Quiet Diversity, Iben Salto has described Julie Edel Hardenberg’s practice in the following words: “Julie takes a stand both personally and in her artistic work with regard to the stereotyping of cultural images, especially those that are related to Greenland. The Greenlandic artists have, with respect to the political aspects of culture, been entrusted with the task of functioning as links between the ‘old’ Greenland and the ‘new’. They are assumed to have access to the culture as a resource and to work under some sort of obligation to describe and guard it. There is even talk of a special Greenlandic art, which is defined in terms of something ethnic. This is all supported by the cultivation of cultural originality in indigenous art by art experts, museum curators and politicians. Many Greenlandic artists themselves maintain that their main inspiration, for instance, is the magnificent landscape or the mythology, and state in a very direct way that they draw on their cultural roots in their art. Julie does not live up to that expectation. She has instead enlisted herself in a post-colonial debate, and makes the question of ethnic identity a preoccupation and a subject for artistic exploration. In some of her highly conceptual photographic works she portrays herself, her friends and acquaintances with different effects which one customarily associates with something ethnic. But instead of delivering the ethnic goods, questions are also raised here in these works as to what ethnic really consists of.” [Iben Salto, “The Quiet Diversity,” in Julie Edel Hardenberg, The Quiet Diversity, Nuuk: Milik Publishing, 2005]

Julie Edel Hardenberg participated in Act 1 with one new and two older projects. Her photo installation “Made In” from 1995 was installed in one of the small office cubicles. Consisting of twelve passport photos, in which the artist enacts various ethnicities, the installation humorously questions the problematics of essentialized ethnic identities.

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Julie Edel Hardenberg, Installation view of “Made In” (1995). 12 passport photos, 5 x 7 cm each. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

In three additional office spaces, Hardenberg exhibited twenty-seven photographic works from her book The Quiet Diversity. Examining notions of identity and community in postcolonial Greenland, the images bear witness to a globalized reality equally influenced by Inuit, Danish, and American value systems.

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Julie Edel Hardenberg, Installation view of “The Quiet Diversity” (2005). 27 photographs from the book project The Quiet Diversity, A3 format. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

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Julie Edel Hardenberg, Details of “The Quiet Diversity” (2005). Photo: © Julie Edel Hardenberg. Courtesy of the artist

Hardenberg’s last contribution consisted of a new “Untitled” installation from 2006 made specifically for Rethinking Nordic Colonialism. Eight national flags from each of the member countries of the Nordic region were hung from the ceiling to form a closed octagon that the viewer could enter. In between the flags and on the floor, medical blood bags were scattered. Bringing together the flags of both sovereign states and home ruling countries in the Nordic region on equal footing, the installation ironizes over the composition of the region and the unequal status of its member countries. An inequality, Hardenberg seems argue, which has its roots in colonialism’s racialized hierarchies. [Tone Olaf Nielsen]

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Julie Edel Hardenberg, Installation view of “Untitled” (2006). Mixed media installation, dimensions variable. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

INUK SILIS HØEGH
Born 1972 in Qaqortoq, Greenland. Currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark

Inuk Silis Høegh has worked mainly as a film director and cinematographer, but began in 2000 to experiment with video, sculpture, and installation also. He holds a MFA in Film and TV Production from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom (1997) and is a member of Kimik – The Artists Association in Greenland and Assilissat – The Filmmakers’ Association in Greenland. [Tone Olaf Nielsen]

Inuk Silis Høegh participates with a new version of the project “Meelting Barricades.” The project was originally produced by Inuk Silis Høegh in collaboration with Danish artist Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen for the 25th Anniversary of the Greenlandic Home Rule Government on June 21, 2004. Høegh states about the project: “We wanted to make a Greenlandic army – an absurdity given the country’s size and population. Taking our point of departure in the rhetorics of the military, we posed the question: What values does Greenland wish to preserve and contribute with within a globalized world? Once Greenland becomes independent, the country should not uncritically become part of globalization’s tendency to homogeneity, nor should it withdraw in national self-sufficiency. Cultural barricades will melt, and new ones will arise. The question is how this transition should take place – and how Greenland will find its own two feet to stand on.

Our project was many-sided and began with a performance in downtown Nuuk, May 2004. Dressed as two Greenlandic generals, we marched with drums and soldiers down the main street and encouraged everyone to join Greenland’s Defense Forces. The next part of the project consisted of founding the Greenlandic Command Post at the Usk Ukalisuaq School in June. As part of the discussion of Greenlandic values, we had arranged a drawing competition for all Greenlandic children entitled ‘What do you like about your country?’ These drawings, as well as propaganda films, invasions plans, and possible attack scenarios, became part of the final exhibition.

In August 2004, we launched the second part of the project: a Greenlandic invasion of Denmark. The position of the colonial power was turned upside down in that Greenland was presented as the superior cultural and military power. The invasion was initiated in the culture house, The North Atlantic House, in Copenhagen. During the opening, we staged a victory parade in an armored vehicle in the streets of Copenhagen. Inside the exhibition, which was built as a military camp, we held a speech announcing the proportions of the occupation and the future plans for Greenland’s Defense Forces. Furthermore, audiences were presented with the strategy used to occupy the Danish Parliament, a specially designed torture chamber, an overview of military resources, and the army’s plans for increasing the Greenlandic population.” [Inuk Silis Høegh]

For Act 1, “Melting Barricades” was recreated in a new installation made specifically for Rethinking Nordic Colonialism. Using posters, video, flyers, stickers, registration forms, and military objects, the installation functioned as a recruitment center for recruiting soldiers from among the visitors to join Greenland’s Defense Forces and their impending conquering of the world. Through its militarist discourse, “Melting Barricades” became an absurd detournement of the Danish government’s present control of Greenland’s military and foreign affairs and a discussion of the country’s transition into an always already globalized future autonomy. [Kuratorisk Aktion]

An exhibition handout written by Khaled Ramadan can be downloaded here.

The installation’s Registration Form can be downloaded here.

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Inuk Silis Høegh & Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Installation view of “Melting Barricades” (2004-06).
Mixed media installation, dimensions variable. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artists

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Inuk Silis Høegh & Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Details of “Melting Barricades” (2004-06).
Photo: © Inuk Silis Høegh & Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen. Courtesy of the artists

MARYAM JAFRI
Born 1972 in Karachi, Pakistan. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark and New York, USA

Maryam Jafri is an artist whose work focuses on the role of narrative and history in constructing identities, from the individual to the national. She is a 2000 graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden; Helsinki Konsthall, Finland; and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany. Her work has been included in numerous group shows and video festivals in Europe, the US, and Asia.

Maryam Jafri partipated in Act 1 with the project “Siege of Khartoum, 1884” from 2005-06. Consisting of a series of A1 ink-jet prints installed in two parts in the exhibition space, the project appropriates iconic images from the Iraq war invasion (such as the capture of Saddam, the tearing down of his statue in the public square) and combines them with archival news texts from earlier points in history. The texts come from archives of The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Times of London. The articles span from the period of high empire (late 19th century) to the present day. They include Winston Churchill’s journalist writings while battling Mahdists in Sudan (1898), British attempts to suppress the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya (1950s), two anonymous American journalists’ depictions of the conquest of the Philippines (1890s), Vietnam (1960s), and Panama (1990s). The juxtaposition of archival texts with contemporary images reveals parallels between past and present. The work reveals the way colonial wars of conquest have been packaged and presented in a palatable form to the home audience, and how the coverage of the contemporary Iraq war closely follows this predetermined script. [Maryam Jafri]

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Maryam Jafri, Installation view of “Siege of Khartoum, 1884” (2005-06). A1 posters, archival ink-jet on Hahnemuehle paper. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

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Freedom for the Arabs—The Baghdad of the Future,
The Times of London, 1917

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The Dynamite Outrages, Daily Telegraph, 1898

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The General Goes To Court, New York Times, 1990

 

STEVE OUDITT
Born 1960 in Trinidad, The West Indies. Lives and works in St. Augustine, Trinidad

Steve Ouditt is an artist and lecturer at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. He has worked as a Curator of Education and Research at the Institute of International Visual Arts [inIVA], London, and as a Lecturer at The Caribbean School of Architecture, Kingston, Jamaica. He has also been a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and a visiting lecturer at the School of Architecture at Universidad Nacional Pedro Henrique Urena [UNPHU] in Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic. His book creole in-site was published in London in 1998 by inIVA. Steve is presently researching how political communication engages design culture to create meanings of the nation, citizenship, law, culture, and human rights. [Steve Ouditt]

Steve Ouditt participated in Act 1 with a new installation titled “Trademark Capital.” Produced specifically for Rethinking Nordic Colonialism in 2006, the installation consisted of a series of pictograms and texts installed in the kitchen area of the office floor. Viewers were invited to sign and bring home as many pictograms as they wanted. Signing the pictograms, the viewer entered into a contract with the project, committing to rethink Nordic colonialism beyond the boundaries of the exhibition space. [Tone Olaf Nielsen]

Steve Ouditt describes his intentions with the installation in the following words: “In almost all societies that were colonized, colonizers usurped already existing businesses and associations, and created many more. Indeed, capitalizing on the availability of conditions and diverse resources of people and places was a fundamental reason for colonization. Promotions and advertisements for products and services in the colonial era communicated cultural and social relations, apart from the obvious sales pitch. The aim of these pictograms are to create somewhat modern and future looking trademarks of a number of social, political, cultural, and economic factors that were fundamental to the colonial enterprise in order to maintain a lively discourse of colonization, in everyday exchanges in the contemporary Nordic societies.” [Steve Ouditt]

Texts from the installation can be downloaded here.

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Steve Ouditt, Installation view of “Trademark Capital” (2006). Mixed media installation, dimensions variable. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

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Steve Ouditt, “Colonial Planning” (2006). Silkscreen on card, 18 x 18 cm each. Silkscreen printer: Keith Cadette. Graphic artist: Sabrina Charran. Courtesy of the artist

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Steve Ouditt, “Field Labour” (2006). Silkscreen on card, 18 x 18 cm each. Silkscreen printer: Keith Cadette. Graphic artist: Sabrina Charran. Courtesy of the artist

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Steve Ouditt, “Finance” (2006). Silkscreen on card, 18 x 18 cm each. Silkscreen printer: Keith Cadette. Graphic artist: Sabrina Charran. Courtesy of the artist

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Steve Ouditt, “Medical Research” (2006). Silkscreen on card, 18 x 18 cm each. Silkscreen printer: Keith Cadette. Graphic artist: Sabrina Charran. Courtesy of the artist

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Steve Ouditt, “Military” (2006). Silkscreen on card, 18 x 18 cm each. Silkscreen printer: Keith Cadette. Graphic artist: Sabrina Charran. Courtesy of the artist

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Steve Ouditt, “Private Security” (2006). Silkscreen on card, 18 x 18 cm each. Silkscreen printer: Keith Cadette. Graphic artist: Sabrina Charran. Courtesy of the artist

ÓSK VILHJÁLMSDÓTTIR
Born 1962 in Iceland. Lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland

Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir is an artist, activist, and mountaineer. She studied at the Reykjavik Art Academy and Hochschule der Künste in Berlin (Meisterschüler, 1994). Her works deal with the tension between the private and the public and what role art plays in society. She organizes and leads hiking tours in endangered areas of the Icelandic highlands. She was chairman of the board of the artist run gallery, The Living Art Museum, in Reykjavik from 2000-02, and has been giving lectures at the Academy of the Arts, Reykjavik and the Reykjavik School of Visual Art. Selected exhibitions count “Scheißland,” Island Bilder (Germany, 2005); Positive Growth – Negative Growth, ASI Art Museum (Reykjavik, 2005); “Settlement,” New Icelandic Art (National Gallery of Iceland, 2005); “Wohnglück/Traumhausmuster” (Bremen, Germany, 2005); “Polis” (Wroclaw, Poland, 2004); “Settlement,” Berlin North (Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2004); “Something Else” (Galleri Hlemmur, Reykjavik, 2003); In and Out of the Window (as The Art Nurses) (ASI Art Museum, Reykjavik, 2003). Websites include: this.is/osk; this.is/artnurses; and this.is/augnablik/english.html. [Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir]

For Act 1, Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir contributed with a new project titled “Power in your hands.” Consisting of a painting-, flag-, and t-shirt installation in the exhibition space as well as two additional flag installations in downtown Reykjavik, “Power in your hands” examined the conflict between corporate-led globalization and environment in postcolonial Iceland. The project represented the agreement made between the Icelandic government and excutives from the American aluminum smelter company, Alcoa, to build a huge hydroelectric power plant in the Icelandic highland. Appropriating corporate marketing strategies, “Power in your hands” was a sharp indictment of the Icelandic government’s decision to sacrifice unique nature and democratic debate to accommodate transnational corporations. [Kuratorisk Aktion]

Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir describes the project in the following words: “Mountaineering in the Icelandic highlands and environmental activism have for a long time been my sidelines. I have organized treks in a highland area where the Icelandic government recently started to build a huge hydroelectric power plant. This government task is the biggest project in the history of Iceland. Vast areas of untouched nature – the last remaining wildernesses of Europe – will be drowned September 2006. It is a sacrifice the government decided to make for the American aluminum smelter company, Alcoa. The project has been carried forward by force, not enlightened discussion. Iceland is one of the smallest economies in the world. But the government is planning to make it one of the biggest aluminum producers in the world. The Icelandic government has defined the country as a heavy industry zone, a neo-colony for huge aluminum smelters. This will not only cause environmental but economical devastation as well.” [Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir]

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Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir, Installation view of “Power in your hands” (2006). Painting installation, dimensions variable. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

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Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir, Installation view of “Power in your hands” (2006). T-shirts. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

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Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir, “Power in your hands” (2006). Flag installation on the balcony of the exhibition venue overlooking the central shopping street Laugavegur. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

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Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir, “Power in your hands” (2006). Flag installation in Austurvöllur Square in front of the Parliament Building and Reykjavik's oldest church, Domkirkja. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

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Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir, “Power in your hands” (2006). Flag installation on Arnarhóll in front of the statue of Viking Ingolfur Arnarson, the first settler in Iceland year 874. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of the artist

KARA WALKER
Born 1969 in Stockton, California, USA. Lives and works in New York, USA

Kara Walker is a visual artist. She holds a MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design (1994) and a BFA in Painting/Printmaking from Atlanta College of Art (1991). She is known for exploring the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality through her silhouetted figures. Her work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Ciudad de Mexico, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and The Whitney Museum of American Art. She was the United States representative at the 25th International Bienal of São Paolo in Brazil. [Sikkema Jenkins & Co.]

Kara Walker participated with two older works in Act 1. Installed in two consecutive office cubicles, her “Untitled” series of water colors from 2004 displayed seemingly innocent and normal scenarios depicted in delicate shades of earthy and warm colors. However, at closer inspection the intimate scenes are highly ambiguous, resonating with the harsh reality of social denigration and sexual violence as means of maintaining a racial and gender-based hierarchy. [Kuratorisk Aktion]

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Kara Walker, Installation view of “Untitled” (2004). Water color on paper, 18 works,
each 29.5 x 30.5 cm (framed). Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

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Kara Walker, “Untitled” (2004). Water color on paper, 29.5 x 30.5 cm (framed). Image courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

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Kara Walker, “Untitled” (2004). Water color on paper, 29.5 x 30.5 cm (framed). Image courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

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Kara Walker, “Untitled” (2004). Water color on paper, 29.5 x 30.5 cm (framed). Image courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

In another office cubicle, the film project “8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picture by Kara E. Walker” from 2005 was projected. This work “…is Walker’s second film project. It employs a series of montages using animated cut-paper marionettes to draw a picture of the nascent Antebellum South that is at times darkly menacing, and at others disturbingly comical. Likewise, Walker has added the element of sound – popular music from the turn of the century and her own narration – to the film. The work debuted in fall 2005 at REDCAT, Los Angeles.” [Sikkema Jenkins & Co.]

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Kara Walker, Installation view “8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picture by Kara E. Walker” (2005). DVD Video, 18 min. Photo: © Bjargey Ólafsdóttir. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

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Kara Walker, DVD stills from “8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picture by Kara E. Walker” (2005). Image courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York