#colonial gaze

[meisterdrucke]

Gauguin arrived in Tahiti in 1891 searching for an imagined paradise. What he found was a colonial society already shaped by European influence. What he painted was something else again. In "A Street in Tahiti", dusty roads, violet mountains and impossible greens become less a record of a place than a vision of it. That tension between reality and fantasy is what makes Gauguin's work so compelling and so controversial at the same time. Quelle: meisterdrucke.com

[brooklynmuseum]

The Resource Room in the exhibition When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks celebrates the daily life and lived experiences of Indigenous people in a way that rejects the colonial gaze, which romanticized westward expansion and depicted Native Americans as part of a vanishing frontier. Presented alongside historic and contemporary artworks, a selection of photographs, maps, vocabulary cards, and other materials from the Brooklyn Museum's archives pull back the lens of white male anthropologists and art collectors, offering insight on collecting practices and allowing Indigenous people's experiences understanding of themselves to take precedence.

In observance of National Native American Heritage Month, this November we’ll be exploring the themes of the exhibition When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks, with commentary from both Jeffrey Gibson and historian Dr. Christian Ayne Crouch.

Posted by Forrest Peslue Video by Anne Sofie Nørskov, Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo Video Fellow⁠, produced by Rachel Lewis

[cardassiangoodreads]

On the note of subjects vs. objects, I’ve been thinking about Fullmetal Alchemist a lot in watching DS9 in terms of both “DS9 was recommended to me a lot during the Tumblr FMA Wars” but also because they’re both speculative fiction that deal pretty extensively with post-colonial themes. And one of the things I love about DS9 over both FMAs -- but particularly Brotherhood/the manga -- and where even early in the run it already handles the themes way better?

A Bajoran, a member of the colonized group, is a main character. Much of the Bajoran vs. Cardassian stuff is framed as from her perspective. And even the supporting Bajoran characters are regularly given moments where we get to see and hear things from their own perspectives. 

(This changes somewhat as the show goes on and we get to know more of the major Cardassian players, including more sympathetic ones like Garak and Damar as well as one-off characters who are dissidents like Natima Lang. But Kira’s perspective on this is still the primary, most frequent one. And establishing her perspective first still matters, it becomes the default that the other ones we hear, including from other Bajorans, build off.)

Whereas in FMA, we are given sympathetic minority characters but it’s largely from the perspective of the MCs from the oppressive majority group. Even if Ed and Al are, as individuals, not directly responsible, Ed is part of the military group that is and they’re both part of the larger racial majority. (So the DS9 analogue would be having the Cardassians as the main perspective characters throughout the whole story, which, lol.) We have prominent Ishvalan (colonized group) characters but they not only are not the main focus, we rarely see things from their perspective. Sure, they get to tell their stories, but the visual and narrative framing is through the eyes of the Amestrians (colonizer group) they’re telling it to. There are a few exceptions in FMA 2003 that I think turn it into a more outright anti-colonial story than the work it’s adapted from, but overall in both versions of the story, Ishvalans are sidelined. It’s not their story.

(I wrote a whole 25-page term paper about this though so I’m not going to rehash it too much, lol)

DS9 avoids this by making the Bajorans a much bigger part of their own story from the get-go. Because Kira Nerys is a bigger character than even the most prominent Cardassians are. Which makes it much less perilous when DS9 explores stuff like, how authoritarian forces within a marginalized group can use the power vacuum of an anti-colonial uprising to their advantage. Or Bajorans’ cultural reliance on a religion with reactionary elements to it.

(Also, in a visual sense, the Bajorans are the more human-looking of the two -- they’re basically humans with nose crinkles -- and that automatically makes them feel less like an Other to us than the grey reptilian Cardassians)

So, in short: Subject vs. object matters. And wow, this ended up being about the same length as the post I was spinning it off from, huh.

[alaayemore-blog]

Weavers in Lagos. Photograph taken between 1910 and 1913. Lagos, West Africa. X

[meisterdrucke]

Paul Gauguin's "Te Tiare Farani" was painted during his first year in Tahiti in 1891. Bright oleanders fill the foreground while two figures gaze quietly beyond them, creating a scene rich with color and mystery. Blending European artistic ideas with Tahitian life, Gauguin created one of his most memorable works - a painting that continues to spark conversation more than a century later. Available as a fine art print at meisterdrucke.com. Quelle: meisterdrucke.com

[alaayemore-blog]

Original Caption: Alaafin Oyo. Oyo. This picture was probably taken between the late 19th Century and the early 20th century. National Archives UK.

[alaayemore-blog]

Photographs from Nigeria.Taken between 1910 and 1913. West Africa.

[soulakuarian]

It's always fascinating to me how when western media makes a report or an article about a country, from the so called global South, especially in Africa, they always bring musical artists, especially rap artists or Rock'n'roll.

As if those countries don't have a civil society. It's either politicians &/or artists. Apparently only artists can't give an insight on society's pulse.

Not activists, not unions, not local NGO, not writers, philosophers, sociologists, historians, you name it.

I'm pretty sure They don't think those exist, insofar as They don't serve the naive, colonial, syrupy, condescending and european centered narratives, they want to sell.

It would be interesting for a Cameroonian journalist to go to France and interview Orelsan, Aya Nakamura, Saez or whomever.

Imagine a Jamaican tv crew, popping up in England, and to talk about the country current situation (brexit, tories bastardry, Northern Ireland, NHS, Windrush etc...) only to interview a few Adele, Coldcut, or the Specials, mind You the latter is probably more insightful than most M.P.