Antonio Sanchez Solis |
Vienna, (EFE) of colonialism, its wounds and alternative futures.
In “Science Fiction(s). If there were a tomorrow”, the Weltmuseum in Vienna brings together 25 contemporary artists from countries such as Mexico, Nigeria, Brazil or Canada who resort to science fiction to talk about how indigenous communities imagine that future.
“It’s about overcoming colonial trauma, living with everyone, with others on the planet, also with other approaches, other forms of knowledge,” Tobias Mörike, one of its curators, sums up the meaning of the show for EFE.
“Decolonize” science fiction
This expert argues that the exhibition can also contribute to “decolonize” science fiction and ideas about the future that have been created from the West, and recalls that there are cultural movements that for decades have been talking about “speculative futures” in Africa, in the Muslim world or in the native communities of America or Oceania.
In this sense, the exhibition abandons the idea of a future as a continuous technological development and with colonial ambitions.
Through six different rooms, for example, space exploration is separated from the element of conquest and colonization of other worlds, the suffering of peoples occupied by European powers is denounced or the need to respect all forms of life is discussed.
“We, in Europe, are not the only ones who have thought about how to move forward,” said Jonathan Fine, director of the Weltmuseum, the ethnographic museum in Vienna, today at the presentation of the exhibition.
Indigenous Star Wars
In the first room, American Rory Wakemup, from the Anishinaabeg Native American culture, “indigenizes” Star Wars characters with traditional ceremonial clothing.
Thus, the appropriation by this saga of films of concepts such as “force”, the belief of Native Americans about balance and that the creator is everywhere, so everything in nature must be, is also denounced. treated with respect.
Also speaking of cultural appropriation is a piece that juxtaposes a photo from the early 20th century that shows a Hopi woman with the typical side buns, which served as inspiration for the famous hairstyle of Princess Leia from Star Wars.
The author of this collage, Nicholas Galanin, from the Tingit people in Alaska, denounces how while using this indigenous style, they are denied their right to define their own culture.
Another of the rooms is led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and shows for the first time in Europe the production “Autonomous InterGalactic Space Program”, by the Portuguese artist Rigo23.
Here, space exploration is used to commemorate the peoples who lost out on voyages of conquest in the past.
The ship, shaped like an ear of corn, is a symbol of the ideals of “coexistence, social justice or a sustainable economy,” explains Mörike.
The perspective of the Muslim world is reflected with “Spatial Mosques”, by the Pakistani Saks Afridi, and there are also examples of “Afrofuturism” and “Chicanafuturism”.
Beyond criticizing the colonialism of the past and how to heal its wounds in the future, the show includes works that imagine better futures.
In “Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE”, Ghanaian artist Ekow Nimako uses 100,000 LEGO building set pieces to imagine what the capital of the medieval kingdom of Ghana would have looked like in the distant future, presenting a developed city that seeks to “reconcile ancestral traumas and imagine a free future” for the African peoples, according to the catalog of the exhibition.
Another installation uses an Artificial Intelligence tool that can be asked to design spaceships by combining vivid colors with the art style of El Greco, comics or Van Gogh, with any concept or idea.