How to Start Your Own Country is one title found in Bik Van der Pol's traveling library called Loompanics, named after a now-defunct publishing house in the US that published what many saw as subversive texts. The "project" is a series of books by the publisher and covers a broad variety of topics that some see as subversive to the power of the state, thus raising issues of censorship. The manner with which the films and documentaries are made reveals how images on television and film can be manipulated.
Another artist who calls the honesty of the news into question is Abel Abidin with his exhibit Welcome to Baghdad, a video promoting tourism in Baghdad. As the narrator rhymes off the beauty of the Mesopotamian desert, images showing the ravages of the Iraq war are shown on the screen. The juxtaposition of the sugary narrative with the brutal images is at once funny and grotesque and reminds the viewer that all is not rosy in the oil-rich nation. A "tourist guide" for prospective travelers is also on offer complete with ironic warnings.
Like most of the exhibits, the relationship between texts, guides and manuals, which can be taken out of the museum, serves to create a dialogue that moves beyond the museum walls. This differs markedly from traditional ideas of an exhibit where one leaves with only a mental impression of the work. With Naked Life, the curators and artists want to move beyond the confines of the museum and bring it out into and the social landscape that we all inhabit.
RSS