The exhibition project «Colonial Endurance. Detecting the Algorithm of Violence in Infrastructures»

One of the results of the international laboratory «Colonial Endurance Across Eastern Geographies», which was conceived and organised by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits from the Creative Association of Curators TOK, became the exhibition project «Colonial Endurance. Detecting the Algorithm of Violence in Infrastructures».

The exhibit is open from July 27 to October 8 at Rotterdam’s Nieuwe Instituut Museum, it explores the mechanisms of exploitation, suppression and discrimination deeply rooted in infrastructural and architectural systems, both historical and contemporary.

The exhibition reveals recurring strategies of occupation and colonisation, which are often organically embedded in construction processes and act as tools to suppress another territory, context, culture, locality, etc. By exposing this algorithm of violence in different geographical and temporal contexts, the exhibition explores how remnants of colonial processes and imperialist visions continue to persist in architectural and industrial heritage. The research-based art projects in the exhibition call for a critical rethinking of this algorithm.

The exhibition features works by Swiss artists: Denise Bertschi, Camille Kaiser, the duo Williman/Arai, Seline Baumgartner, Mbene Mwambene, and Nello Novela, and Uriel Orlow. Read more

On photo (c) Denise Bertschi, CONFIDENTIAL, film still, 2018