Question of Evidence
Publisher: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig
Published: 2009
Language: eng
Number of pages: 190
ISBN-13: 9783865605696
Subjects: Technology and the arts; Exhibitions; Photography, artistic; Artists' materials
Description: A Question of Evidence presents work by a selection of artists and cultural practitioners that engages with or comments upon the diffi culty of creating, collecting, and disseminating evidence-based source material around issues such as identity politics, the suppression of human rights, democratic reform, and attempts to restrict free expression and representation. As “narrations of urgency”, the works in the exhibition often present multiple perspectives on confl icted or rapidly changing realities. The exhibition incorporates a variety of artistic and cultural approaches - including moving image, still photography, text, archival material, installation, and theatrical performance-that encompass diverse viewpoints on the nature and function of representation in the face of “real” events and sociopolitical circumstances.^

Some participants present a side of their practice that is interdisciplinary, collaborative, or hybrid, as in the case of Khin Khin Su, Marine Hugonnier, Raqs Media Collective, and Amar Kanwar. Most of them, in fact, regularly collaborate with grassroots collectives that, faced with restricted channels of communication, manage to conduct research and disseminate information through Internet-based networks, video and fi lm databases, open-source initiatives, and other means. The works in the exhibition exemplify the transformation of the concept of visual art to one of visual-intellectual culture or knowledge production. While restricted in its geographical scope - most participants live in South or Central Asia - the exhibition does not overlook, but rather illuminates the essential differences in the role and presence of artists and practitioners within the public realm in their respective contexts.^

Central to these works is the notion of evidence, which can be defi ned as the act of testifying or bearing witness in a broad cultural sense. Evidence is, in its fullest defi nition, a paradoxical and contested notion, as it may refer to a highly privatized object (image, symbol, artifact) that serves as a trace or indication of a past event or experience. It can also indicate a sign acting as an “orientation” device, an anchoring object for (often) anxious and subjective testimonies. In the legal context it can be either object-based (an exhibit) or written or oral testimony, referring to an objectivist order or to the status of a subject / witness.^

Because it is derived from and overlaps with other disciplines-such as anthropology, ethnography, history, philosophy, religion, literature, politics, sociology, and law - the notion of evidence serves as a useful guiding principle in the analysis of the assembled works and practices, which cross genre lines-encompassing art, fi lm, music, narrative, poetry, and performance - and involve the eclectic use of competing discourse--Press release.