From March 10 to 27, 2022, a complementary exhibition to Dark Pairing will take place in the framework of the FOTO WIEN Festival. In the Weltmusmuseum Wien’s historical showcases, the striving for domination of colonial powers is thematised with regard to collecting, categorizing and subjugating nature. The dominant Western gaze declares indigenous nature to be something exotic to this day. Wie-yi T. Lauw leaves fresh cut flowers to a process of decay over a period of two weeks: they perish, wither slowly. Here, on the one hand, she alludes to the brutality of colonial rule, and on the other, she critically questions the idea of preserving colonial looted art and thus our museum practice in dealing with these objects. The result is a vanitas motif that vividly addresses past and present, colonial history and contemporary responsibility.
Text by Lynn Busch translated by Nora Haas
We will be documenting the process of the flowers decay throughout those two weeks and shall be sharing it with you thereafter.