Exhibition Overview
Coloniality refers to the colonial ideals, concepts, formats, and organizations which continue to produce decontextualized knowledge which ignores that there have always been other ways of doing, thinking, valuing, and being. Decoloniality may seem new due to this decontextualization. THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY: Decolonial Media Art Beyond 530 Years concentrates on the work of artists who are dedicated to the movement of decoloniality. They follow a school of thought principally headed by an Indigenous and Afro Latin American effort which focuses on dismantling the apparently organic and unquestionable nature of Eurocentric concepts and ideals. Since colonial times, these have seeped into the intricately formulated dominant matrix of power, embedded within institutions through the privileging and propagation of homogenous and over simplistic thought, and knowledge production. This has resulted in Eurocentric conceptualizations of, for example, beauty, goodness, science, technology, agriculture, progress, politics, economy, sexuality, gender, race, identity, and being. Decolonial consciousness and praxis rooted in oppressed cultures, has been a true art form for surviving and resisting white supremacy and eurocentrism for over 530 years. Media Artists demonstrate this through artwork that is conscious, ecological, grieving, healing, and unable to separate from social justice practice, and community building.
This online exhibition is curated by Dr. Liliana Conlisk Gallegos. THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY is a project of the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community and is scheduled to premiere at the annual SIGGRAPH ASIA conference, 6-9 December 2022 in Daegu, South Korea.
Jury
THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY: Decolonial Media Art Beyond 530 Years will be selected by a jury composed of an international group of decolonial, border, and interdisciplinary media art practitioners and experts. It is dedicated to all peoples in the struggle for decoloniality. In this important moment in the history of Indigenous peoples around the world, THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY seeks to motivate and encourage usually marginalized voices and diverse perceptions to participate in an international art conversation about what technology and decolonial media art has been, is, can and could be. How can decolonial art be defined in a way that is not projecting the hierarchies, boundaries, and binaries of coloniality? Thus, this exhibit will be inclusive, international, intergenerational, inter-, cross-, and transdisciplinary.
“Decolonial aesthetics asks why Western aesthetic categories like ‘beauty’ or ‘representation’ have come to dominate all discussion of art and its value, and how those categories organize the way we think of ourselves and others: as white or black, high or low, strong or weak, good or evil. And decolonial art (or literature, architecture, and so on) enacts these critiques, using techniques like juxtaposition, parody, or simple disobedience to the rules of art and polite society, to expose the contradictions of coloniality. Its goal, then, is not to produce feelings of beauty or sublimity, but ones of sadness, indignation, repentance, hope, and determination to change things in the future.” (Mignolo, Vázquez, et al., Decolonial AestheSis, 2013) Decolonial art can also be a celebration of “other” beauties and other sublimities, of joy, and righteous indignation, unapologetic defiance, and so much more, because after all, our experiences within coloniality are more than anything; diverse.