Exhibit B: Civilising the Natives
Exhibit B: Civilising the Natives
"Home Economics (1905-1908)"
Home Economics, 1905-1908
Mixed media: barbed wire, glass, spectator, iron pot, Herero woman, human skulls etc.
Women in the concentration camps of German South West Africa had to boil the decapitated heads of fellow prisoners and scrape them clean with shards of glass.
The camps were set up following the extermination of the tens of thousands of Hereros and Namas by German colonial forces.
The skulls were exported to European research institutes, where they were measured and analysed to ‘prove’ the theories of European racial supremacy that legitimised colonial policies.
Exhibit B: Civilising the Natives interview
An interview with the performer of the "Home Economics (1905-1908)" installation.
About Exhibit B
An exploration of racism and Europe’s colonial history are at the heart of Exhibit B, one of the most controversial and thought-provoking works at 2014’s Edinburgh International Festival.
Read more
South African Brett Bailey has produced a hybrid of performance and exhibition through 13 fixed installations at the neo-classical interior of the city's Playfair Library Hall.
Visitors are confronted by a ‘human zoo’ and ethnographic displays popularised during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in each tableau the audience is confronted by a black performer who casts an unsettling, silent gaze at the viewer.
A selection can be experienced here on BBC Arts, accompanied by interviews with some of the performers and their experience of taking part in this unsettling work.
