Wunderkammern : Envy

The first of a series of impossible assemblages of artefacts, vignettes and insects questioning the appropriation of culture and the trade in knowledge and power.

Referencing the histories, myths and propaganda used to justify and excuse the theft of the bones of St Mark from Alexandria by Venice in the 9th Century AD. The romantic scene of a small open boat enduring a rough sea is contained within an ancient Etruscan bowl, now found within a Cairo Museum.

The artwork is one of a series of studies playing with reconstruction of impossible assemblages. The realisation of this work with the original artefacts, would be politically challenging and physically improbable. Using custom auto-stereoscopic screens, this latest experiment in holographic illusion imagined the illusionary construction of uncomfortable narratives and the virtual repatriation of contested artefacts.

Materials:

8-channel video presented on Alioscopy Lenticular Screens and viewed though custom-built pepper’s ghost vitrines.