Panel Discussion: Strategies of Representation and Access
Candice Breitz, Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber, Oliver Ressler, moderated by Jeff Derksen
Summary of Presentations and Debate:
Oliver Ressler’s project “Dienstleistung: Fluchthilfe” points to the relationship of activism and art. The press did not know how to approach the project as art, seeing it instead as activism. The separation of art and activism id not allow the press to understand how this project worked as art. However, in interviews with people living in the area where the magazine was distributed, Oliver and Martin found a high degree of comprehension, agreement and questioning. The public reception was not as concerned with the categories of art and activism, but rather the issues that the project presented. Ressler stressed that the tightening of the borders around the EU has made a new “fortress Europe” which is in conflict with notions of the fluid mobility of people across borders in today’s form of globalism. He also stressed that technological change – often understood as the engine of globalization – is not leading to structural changes within society.
Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber, who designed the website for the tonga.online project, talked of their design concept and the problematic of making a website which was “not a representational website.” Rather than following a web design that would offer representational photos of Tonga people, they aimed at deflecting expectations of representation, but leaving the website framework open and flexible enough so the ultimate shape and design would be in process by other people engaged in the project. So the emphasis was on framework rather than representational models.
In approaching issues of representation in their artistic practice, Bitter and Weber stressed that they try to “keep the conflicts within the image” rather than to smooth over the representational surface.
Canditz Breitz seized the opportunity of “Tracing the rainbow” to point out the “ghostly feeling” of the absence of white South Africans within the show. The effect was that the people who had caused the problems within South Africa were left out. Thus the references to Apartheid and resistance within the show was left without any representation of the cause of the object of resistance. To include whites in the show would make white culture an object of ethnography and thus switch the subject object position.
In the context of the “missing whiteness” of the show – which Breitz emphasized was not a matter of white South Africans suffering from a lack of representation, but an exclusion of the real social relations and social inequities of South Africa -- her presentation of her Ghost Series (which uses Tipp-ex, or White Out, to paint over the figures of black women in ethno-kitsch postcards of “tribal” Africa) took an extra political punch as black bodies in familiar touristic/ethnographic poses were covered in the crudely applied white.
The museum director, Dr. Peter Assmann, in replying to Breitz’s critique of the show, acknowledged the show’s absence’s and it’s reliance on standard forms of ethnographic representation. However, he reported that the show has been a popular one and has drawn large audiences and that “Tracing the Rainbow” is limited in its scope and can not include all aspects of political and cultural life in South Africa. Replies from the audience raised the danger of a conservative and limited view – even racist – of South Africa instilling a dated view of African culture in the audience members – that the representational function of the show was also under question. Dr. Assmann again acknowledged the limits of the show and noted that it was a show which came to the museum originally from another source, and so the museum did not have much of hand in shaping it. Dr. Assmann also added that this type of sweepingly representative show would probably not be engaged by the museum in the future, as it is an older model of museum programming.
There was some discussion of the role of the tonga.online project room’s role within the show. Clearly it provided the audience with a more active and contemporary view of South African culture and life and allowed for contact with people in the Tonga area.
Introduction
Participants