MPH0407 Maud Salter - Syrcas Exhibition @ Autograph ABP, Shoredtich Attending Maud Salters’ exhibition at Autograph ABP was a real eye - opener, having never heard of her artistic work before, or the style of work she undertook. The exhibition itself focused on Maud’s Syrcas photomontage work. Using found postcards of the German landscape, she appropriated images of African symbolism, pasting them on top of the traditional, idyllic scenes of the German countryside to create her powerful photomontages. In particular, this body of work focuses on the role and contribution of Africans to European history, as well as highlighting the cultural appropriation of many elements of African/Black culture in wider European culture. In addition, it could be said that her method of producing her photomontages, doing so physically with the prints themselves as opposed to in the darkroom brings to attention the display of artefacts appropriated my colonial rule from Africa without any context, or full appreciation of what they are to the people from whom they were taken. It is a powerful comment on the lack of recognition of this fact, up close the photomontages themselves showing clearly the physical pasting of the African symbols directly on top of the postcards - to me, this is almost to say “This is Germany, but you’re ignoring all of this”
