5/10/2011
Brett Bailey
Kiasma, Helsinki
Performance-installation about genocide and xenophobia
Exhibit A: Dr Fischer's Cabinet of Curiosities / Found Objects. Bailey's Exhibit A is a performance-installation in two parts, depicting the similarities between racial hygiene theories and the treatment of contemporary immigrants from Africa. The work references the fashionable ethnographical exhibitions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where non-western people were displayed behind fences in human zoos. Dr Fischer's Cabinet of Curiosities includes framed black and white photographs of the severed heads of the Nama people, dating back to the year 1906. In the installation Found Objects immigrants of African descent stand in front of filled immigration forms. The installation is preceded by a workshop, led by Brett Bailey.