2007 _ (re-) Creating History - The Moore Space, Miami, USA
Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.
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The following text was published as article in HTV news number 70 - Radical Losers - Report - (re-) Creating History p.3
This project is all about the paradox of history, the encounter and tourism. When I traveled to the outskirts of Mongolia to discover those who had never been in contact with the outside world I was hoping for authenticity, the 'real'. Now, I realize that by succeeding in finding I instantly destroyed what I was looking for. This project is the re-enactment of these scenes set on the border with Kazakhstan 11 years earlier.
By restaging on Miami's Surfside beach this project reflects the way history is constructed and is being created. It examines how multiculturalism functions in Miami and in which manner identity, ethnicity and history itself are developed, transformed and maintained through relocation and integration. The production and registration of the enactment was established by a divers group of people related to Miami, who performed as concept consultants, stage builders, directors and documentalists and therefore became the active (re-) creators of history.
It all started out as a search for something that was untouched, uninfluenced by media, TV, peer pressure or anything else. I was looking for people in their natural habitat, a phenomenon that is in itself indefinable. I visited the Papua in Irian Jaya, who were still living in the Stone Age just decades ago, until they were discovered by an airplane flying over the valley where they lived in a completely cut-off community of 200.000 people. Interesting things happened there.
I remember how we landed in a little village high in the mountains on an upward sloping landing strip where the catholic mission's six-seater had to turn into sharply between two walls to come to a quick stop. We were greeted by what seemed to be the whole village dressed in nothing but straw miniskirts for women, and penis guards made out of long orange calabash for men. Later we were told these villagers ate the missionary and his 11 helpers from Java one day in the late seventies when they got fed up. We walked around the little place, kids measuring the thickness of our thighs, being impressed.
The people traded pigs and bags as money, and one day I showed a woman how to knit the braided fibers they otherwise knot together in an elaborate and time-consuming process. Only after moving on the other day, I realized this might have had a bigger influence on their culture and economy then I had assumed earlier. As a result it dawned on me that there is this strange relationship between the authentic and encountering the authentic. To find and know the untouched is a paradox because you will always be the first tourist to make an impact, to influence, immediately upon contact. You break the rule of the uninfluenced and the process is irreversible. Your traces on the encountered cannot be erased. Your traces are there for good. And therefore you cannot reach the authentic. You cannot determine it or understand it, because when you arrive the system is instantly changed.
All of this I have realized only recently while coming across my slides from these voyages to the Baliem Valley in Irian Jaya, the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia, and the border between Mongolia and Kazakhstan. And looking at this one slide in particular, that image of my girlfriend posing between a few yaks, and me standing next to her in the wedding dress of the 'authentic' nomads whom we had finally discovered, made me wonder. It suddenly struck me there was something wrong with the whole picture.
The man who took the photo lived in a very remote region of the country and had never been in contact with anyone except his own neighbors. He had no TV, radio, newspaper, nor magazines. No one from the outside world had ever past by his Yurt, his nomadic mobile home. And no one had ever worn his wedding clothes. He considered us fellow nomads, different of course by language, attire, and soft unwrinkled faces. He and his wife dressed us up and there we stood, kind of proud of finally finding what we were looking for; uninfluenced cultural authenticity.
But what is authenticity? If our host had no references to my world, and if he never saw a photo camera before, this signifies we were the main attraction. The roles were reversed; we became his new reference. We became subject to their view instead of them being subjected to ours. The paradox of our search for the uninfluenced lies in the outcome: we were perceived as authentic by the ones we encountered. We had a complete set of physical and behavioral features that were unknown to these nomadic Mongols. And by posing as one of them, and them observing us wearing their wedding dresses, they could see a representation of themselves that was framed by the viewfinder of the camera while they took that picture of us. Whatever happened by shooting that image, it seems that the photograph this 'authentic' man took of us ultimately made me look at history, the encounter, and tourism in a permanently altered way.
Crew
Daan Noppen - Director of Photography
Bart Groothedde - Camera Operator
Odalis Valdivieso - Head of Logistics
Mónica Hernández - Documentation and Editing
Tita Aaftink - Documentation
Lili(ana) - Construction, Documentation and Guidance
Efrén Candelaria - Concept Consultant & Driver
Christóbal León - Concept Consultant
Nina Dotti - Concept Consultant & Costume
Marcela Römer - Costume
José Manuel Mateo - Head of Stage Construction
Special thanks to Guigui, Ibett, Silvia, Janelle, Alex, Minka, Isaais, Estuardo & Boris
This project was sponsored by Arts Connection and The Consulate General of The Netherlands. The Moore Space is sponsored by Craig Robins, Rosa de la Cruz, Eugenio López/La Colección Jumex and Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, The Miami-Dade Mayor and the Board of County Commissioners.
http://www.TheMooreSpace.org
http://www.arts-connection.org
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 Creating History. Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.<br><br>Slide nr. 1: Dressed up in nomads' wedding attire.<br><br>Photo by unknown Mongolian Nomad&file=08_re_creating_history_web.jpg)
 Creating History. Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.<br><br>Re-staging slide nr. 1: With girlfriend in wedding attire.<br><br>Photo by Lili(ana)&file=09_re_creating_history_web.jpg)
 Creating History. Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.<br><br>Re-staging slide nr. 1: With girlfriend in wedding attire.<br><br>Photo by Daan Noppen&file=10_re_creating_history_web.jpg)
 Creating History. Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.<br><br>Slide nr. 2: Girlfriend in wedding dress with family.<br><br>Photo by Allard van Hoorn&file=12_re_creating_history_web.jpg)
 Creating History. Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.<br><br>Re-staging slide nr. 2: Girlfriend in wedding dress with family.<br><br>Photo by Lili(ana)&file=13_re_creating_history_web.jpg)
 Creating History. Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.<br><br>Re-staging slide nr. 2: Girlfriend in wedding dress with family.<br><br>Photo by Tita Aaftink&file=14_re_creating_history_web.jpg)
 Creating History. Investigating Miami as a place of blending cultures and transition by displacing a scene from Mongolia onto the local beaches. Two slides, scanned, enlarged and reproduced as props of a stage-play re-enact the scenes shot by the artist 11 years before in Mongolia.<br><br>Re-staging slide nr. 2: Girlfriend in wedding dress with family.<br><br>Photo by Lili(ana)&file=15_re_creating_history_web.jpg)
