Bik Van der Pol
Effi & Amir
Peter Fend
George Lawrence
Ruben Pater
Forensic Architecture
High&Low Bureau
Yael Messer
Gilad Reich
An exhibition that brings together artists and groups of practitioners who attempt to decolonize the aerial point of view and the visuality it produces by manipulating satellite images, operating hand-made UAVs, and creating new mapping systems in a search for civilian-oriented visual and political imagery.
Organized by: High&Low Bureau (Yael Messer and Gilad Reich)
Featuring work by:
Bik Van der Pol
Effi & Amir
Peter Fend
George Lawrence
Ruben Pater
Forensic Architecture
In recent years, more and more artists and activists are re-appropriating aerial perspectives of power and
control to develop a new language of ethics and aesthetics. Deploying advanced technologies while
developing DIY strategies of documentation and analysis, they look for new ways to transform the aerial
point of view from a “space of state control,” historically linked to the disciplinary gaze of the nation-state,
into a tool for the production and distribution of civil knowledge. These artists and activists manipulate
satellite images, operate un-militarized drones, and actualize new mapping systems in a search for civil-
oriented visual and political imagery.
The exhibition
Decolonized Skies
presents five international artists who explore the ramifications of the
“democratization of the view from above.” While some artists focus on the new visuality produced by this
process, others underline its empowering potential in the field of human rights and participatory knowledge
production. The exhibition also marks a genealogy of artistic engagement with the demilitarization of the
aerial point of view and frames the current discourse in an historical context. By doing so, it explores what
it takes to decolonize the view from above, and how we can produce a new visual and ethical perspective
by actively reclaiming the sky.
Image: Bik Van der Pol, Elements of Composition, 2011
For more information please contact Lorissa Rinehart at lorissa.rinehart@apexart.org
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 10: 6-8 pm
Apexart
291 Church street New York, NY 10013
Hours: tue - sat 11 - 6 pm
free admission to all events