This work references orientalist and imperialist formulations of the East, Africa, and the New World. The installation quotes 19th century European representations of these continents, where nature and culture are collapsed into a single category, effectively undermining the status of non-European cultures.
A regimented row of six English local authority school desks have illuminated plates blocking access to the space beneath their lids. In plate #1 a reclining figure is seen in its original context of the English landscape:
The following five plates have been altered through simple
collage techniques. These natural history and anthropological illustrations
from 19th century encyclopaedias retain their original captions, but additional
text draws attention to a modification: the reclining English figure from plate
#1 intruding into the frame:
In the final plate the intruding Englishman is more deeply embbedded in the picture, observed from behind by 'Arabs' tending a sick member of their group.
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