UNFIXED Photography and postcolonial perspectives in contemporary art
EXHIBITION 23 October – 4 December 2010
UNFIXED explores the elusive nature of photographic truth and its relationship to
notions of ethnicity, culture and identity in contemporary art. Through both an exhibition
and a symposium, UNFIXED brings together a group of international artists and theorists
with personal relations to migration, colonial history and cultural diaspora. These
thinkers and practitioners research and reflect upon photographic histories as they
construct new ones. UNFIXED engages the visual approaches and strategies of the
exhibited works as points of departure for critical and productive consideration, aiming to
contribute to the Netherlands’ relatively young discourse about postcolonialism’s
relevance to photography. In the same fashion as many of the participants, the project
hopes to blur the lines between art practice, scholarly research and cultural activism.
Artists and Speakers:
Charif Benhelima (BE)
Otobong Nkanga (NG/FR)
Keith Piper (UK)
Naro Snackey (NL)
Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (US)
Hank Willis Thomas (US)
Kobena Mercer (UK)
Curators: Sara Blokland and Asmara Pelupessy
Organized by UNFIXED Projects (a nonprofit organization) and the Center for Contemporary Art,
Dordrecht, the Netherlands
UNFIXED EXHIBITION 23 October – 4 December 2010
The exhibition features the work of artists Charif Benhelima (BE), Otobong Nkanga
(NG/FR), Keith Piper (UK), Naro Snackey (NL), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (US) and Hank
Willis Thomas (US). The simultaneously manipulative and elusive nature of photography
plays an important role in the work of each of these artists and the approaches they take
on issues relevant to postcolonialism. Native American artist Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie’s
work is guided by strong advocacy for visual sovereignty. As in her series Portraits
Against Amnesia (2003), the blend of digital and manual collage reposition photographic
portraits beyond traditional or official positions, reclaiming sovereignty over selfrepresentation. With his two related series, Branded (2003-2008) and Unbranded
(2005-2008), American artist Hank Willis Thomas makes sharp political and social
comment on a history of representation of African Americans. Thomas utilizes the flat
photographic language of modern advertising and subverts the original commercial
intent by either adding imagery or deleting text, revealing and focusing attention to the
commodification of African American culture and bodies. The UNFIXED exhibition will be
the first time that the work of Thomas and Tsinhnahjinnie is exhibited in Netherlands.
Dutch artist Naro Snackey’s installation, developed especially for UNFIXED, expresses
the fragility of history. Snackey appropriates photographs from genealogical websites as
the base for life size three-dimensional reconstructions. These sculptures explore
notions of familiarity, strangeness, migration and Snackey’s Indonesian heritage.
Nigerian born artist, Otobong Nkanga, explores performative and associative aspects of
photography, reflecting on notions of memory and space. In her work, Alterscapes
(2006), Nkanaga places herself within the photographic frame. And in a first time
restaging of the work Dream in One Meter Square (originally from 2004-2005) she
invites viewers to contribute their own interpretations directly onto and into the work,
incorporating their own memories into the present. Within the work of Belgian artist
Charif Benhelima, image as memory becomes nearly invisible. In the installation
Semites (2003-2005), a series of overexposed Polaroids of re-photographed (family)
portraits, Benhelima creates a poetic visual abstraction in which he questions his origin
and identity. British artist Keith Piper has used photography to re-collect representational
memories and objects from Britain’s anthropological and colonial histories. UNFIXED
includes a piece of Piper’s groundbreaking interactive digital work and the ‘cut and mix’
video Go West Young Man (1997), both of which are indicative of his continuous
restaging of historical (systems of) information and critique of Western political attitudes
towards their own colonial histories.
UNFIXED SYMPOSIUM 16 November 2010
The symposium will explore photography’s relationship to changing notions of cultural
histories, identities and representations. The day will include lectures and presentations
from each of the artists exhibited, all of whom actively incorporate research and theory
into their conceptual practice. Along with their art practice, members of this diverse
group also sideline as lecturers, writers, performers and cultural critics. Their
presentations will address the strategies, motives and histories of photography
embedded in their work. In addition, Pamela Pattynama, Professor of Colonial and
Postcolonial Literature and Cultural History at the University of Amsterdam, will present
her research on the visual history of the Indo-Dutch community in the Netherlands.
Dutch photographer, Andrea Stultiens, will reflect on her project The Kaddu Wasswa
Archive, a visual biography telling the story of 78 year old Kaddu Wasswa John’s life in
Uganda through his own personal archive. UNFIXED will host a conversation between
Stultiens and her collaborators, Kaddu Wasswa John himself, and his grandson Arthur
C. Kisitu, both visiting from Uganda.
Art historian and critic Kobena Mercer will present the keynote lecture, discussing
photography and the colonial conditions of cross cultural modernity. Mercer will offer a
critical account of the often vexed relation between photographic theory and postcolonial
studies. Born in Ghana in 1960 Mercer is the author of landmark texts in visual culture
and has an international research profile in cultural studies. Since his first book,
Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies (1994), Mercer has
contributed to catalogues such as AfroModern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic
(2010), authored a number of monographs and was the series editor of Annotating Art’s
Histories, whose titles include Cosmopolitan Modernisms (2005) and Exiles, Diasporas
& Strangers (2008), along with contributing articles to frieze, Artforum International and
Camera Austria.
For more information: www.unfixedprojects.org
For more information, appointments for interviews, visuals please contact the curators:
+31 (0)6 15542931 Sara Blokland
+31 (0)6 22142028 Asmara Pelupessy
unfixedprojects@gmail.com
Center for Contemporary Art
Voorstraat 180
3311 ES Dordrecht
Netherlands
Opening hours: Wed-Sat 12-17
UNFIXED is made possible through support from the Mondriaan Foundation, the Netherlands
Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture and the City of Dordrecht.