• ◯ Intro
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Infos

Intro

As part of discourse on the restitution of cultural assets and the new orientation of European institutions collecting artifacts, Sara-Lena Maierhofer’s series Kabinette (2018–19) examines the role of photography as an archival medium that, in historical terms, is closely associated with the colonial perspective. Against this background, and from a white European perspective, how can one decolonialize one’s own artistic practice? By relocating documentary processes to the darkroom, where the artist uses direct exposure on various materials to reenact the view into the museum depot, Maierhofer sets in motion a process of reflection on questions of documentation and the evaluation of (colonial) archives.

Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, recipient of the Camera Austria Award for Contemporary Photography by the City of Graz, is a writer, artist, and researcher whose works manifest through a variety of media. Rooted in Black feminist theory, she has developed a research-based and process-oriented investigative practice that deals with the condition of Black life in the African diaspora. In the process, she interlaces varying spaces and temporalities, thereby resisting a clean-cut separation between documentary and speculation.

During the artist talk, Maierhofer and Kazeem-Kamiński will be discussing relations among archives and exhibition space, gestures of showing or not-showing, and “developing historical negatives” (Ann Laura Stoler) in the context of a colonial past. The talk is taking place in the now mostly dismantled exhibition Double Exposure, where only the works of Sara-Lena Maierhofer remain, reflecting a solo position, on the one hand, while the temporary depot character, on the other, serves to reference the spaces examined by the artist in her work.

Insights