15 January, 18 February, 31 March, 28 April 2010
Films, videos & talks at the Theatre of the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam

Duet for Cannibals is a monthly screening and discussion program on colonialism and cannibalism as forms of cultural appropriation. It brings together a selection of works by contemporary artists and filmmakers as well as footage from the Tropical Museum's archive. Comprising videos, films, slideshows and performative talks by Raimond Chaves, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Ossama Mohammed, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Jose Alejandro Restrepo, Andy Warhol and Ming Wong among others. Curated by Inti Guerrero

Anthropologic and ethnographic institutions in European colonial power centres, like the former Colonial Institute of Amsterdam (nowadays the Royal Tropical Institute), were founded to study and exhibit the culture of 'overseas people'. Their role was to appropriate, classify, and display cultural artifacts and sometimes even human beings. Though they claimed to reveal the pre-supposed cultural essence of the non-European other, such displays further entrenched the stereotypes of a eurocentric scientific and cultural status quo. In other words, it was by means of inclusion of other cultures rather than their exclusion, that the colonial power constructed and affirmed itself within the enlightened modern institution, enhancing a privileged position from where it could unilaterally represent the rest of the world. The works in 'Duet for Cannibals' present a wide range of approaches to this debate by departing from historical strata of colonial archives, post-war cultural imperialism and countercultural forms of metropolitan creole-subcultures. The screenings are accompanied by Q&A sessions with guest artists, lectures and discussions.

The title is borrowed from a 1969 film directed by American author and critic Susan Sontag.

January and February Program

15 January 2010, 20.00 hrs
Encounters with Empires:

Tropenmuseum collection and Tungsten Studio, Missionaries in Papua, 2007, 8 min. documentary
Jose Alejandro Restrepo (CO), Traveler's Diary, 1992, 15 min. video
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (FR), Gloria, 2008, 15 min. video
Wendelien van Oldenborgh (NL), Instruction, 2009, 30 min. video


18 February 2010, 20.00 hrs
Cannibalizing Popular Culture:

Christodoulos Panayiotou (CY), Wonderland, 2008, 10 min. slideshow
Ming Wong (SG), Life of Imitation, 2009, 20 min. video-triptych
Raimond Chaves (PE), El Toque Criollo, 2005, 45 min. performative talk

Duet for Cannibals
Theatre of the Royal Tropical Institute, Linnaeusstraat 2, Amsterdam
Time: 20.00 hrs

This project is produced by agentur; a project space for international curators and artists to identify new artistic tendencies within and beyond Europe.
It is realized thanks to the generous support of the Tropentheatre, Mondriaan Foundation and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

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Theatre of the Royal Tropical Institute
Linnaeusstraat 2
Amsterdam
www.agentur.nl