This year Foam and Pakhuis de Zwijger joined forces in the form of three LIVECASTS around the exhibition Foam Talent. This final conversation of the series “Every woman is a star – Stereotypes in Culture and Gender” is with Adji Dieye (1991, Senegal/Italy) and Kamonlak Sukchai (1994, Thailand). Their work revisits social structures and cultural stereotypes. Together with the two photographers, we will discuss the topics that inform their work through the lenses of feminism and postcolonial critic.
By using their codes and applying the same visual language they ask the viewer to reflect upon their influence on everyday live and question structures of society. Adji Dieye uses the well-known Maggi stock cube as a metaphor to reveal the impact of global imperialistic trade on West African contemporary cultural identities. Kamonlak Sukchai is interested in the ideologies that shape society’s use of the allegorical tales handed down to us, and how stories from the past can be manipulated to control us in the present. Both of the artist fluctuate between fiction and traditions to create a narrative that reveals the larger discourses behind them. They developed a world within their images that mimics the same signs, colours and narrative, but by taking it one step further they make the viewer question those all too familiar promises.
Rita Ouédraogo lives and works in Amsterdam. As a curator, writer, Research and Community programmer, her work is informed by her interest in African diaspora, decolonizing institutions, institutional racism, popular culture and social issues. Ouédraogo has worked on several community based projects based around museum collections and is informed by her ongoing research into questions of Samenwerking en Solidariteit (Collaboration and Solidarity), that explores modes of collaborative practices across power differentials, especially within a decolonial framework.
© Kamonlak Sukchai
