Who Is Afraid of the Museum?

Even before the Weltmuseum Wien ("World Museum Vienna") will again open its gates in the fall of 2017, Latin American artist are digging up its colonial foundation.

For centuries, colonialism has helped Europe to reach its economic, political and military supremacy. The generation of Eurocentric knowledge was necessary to legitimize colonial dominance. Accordingly, establishing the ethnographic museums and collections has been an important part of the long history of colonial violence and exploitation.

By exhibiting objects, people and cultures, and by the knowledge derived, museums have presented themselves as being "natural" and “innocent". This way, however, the violence resulting from these institutions has been concealed. Who Is Afraid of the Museum? – Una excavación de las heridas coloniales takes up this issue – based on the insight that museums are also places of death: a cemetery of robbed objects, eradicated history(ies) and destroyed societies.

Before the re-opening of the Weltmuseum Wien ("World Museum Vienna", formerly the Museum of Ethnology), after renovation, in the fall of 2017, Latin American artist are digging up its colonial foundation. On the forecourt and the premises of the museum, the wounds of colonialism are revealed in various performances, and power structures like Eurocentrism, exotism as well as colonial fantasies are uncovered.

At the same time, these performances are the opening event for the exhibition that is taking place on the premises of the closed Weltmuseum. Artistic works such as installations, drawings, photos, video works and sculptures form symbolic altars. 

Participating artists: Imayna Caceres, Pêdra Costa, Daniela Ortiz, Coco Fusco, Lia García (La Novia), Ayrson Heráclito, Älexis Johñson, Alfredo Ledesma, Marissa Lôbo, Michelle Mattiuzzi, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt, Sandra Monterroso, Alessandra dos Santos Silva, Erika Trejo, Katia Tirado, Sergio Zevallos