Press release The World Turned Inside Out | WdW Review

Could secularized narratives and the impasse of modern rationalism be producing a world devoid of wonder? But consider that knowledge never draws straight lines…

Drafting from unexpected maps and courses of knowledge, and reactivating pre-modern anchors, Witte de With enables development of knowledge in collaboration with a set of international protagonists who, by linking and delinking across fields and practices, seek to debunk historical narratives guided by traditional educational models. These investigations set in motion new paths of inquiry respectively, replete with desire, curiosity, and speculation.

On 25 May 2013 The World Turned Inside Out begins with a series of events taking place throughout the summer and orchestrated by Witte de With’s protagonists and their guests from the fields of the arts, academia and science. Continuing into the Fall of 2013, lines of inquiry will extend into the curatorial, educational and online publishing activities of Witte de With, and culminate with the establishment of a collaborative network of partner organizations, both in Rotterdam and throughout the world.

Julieta Aranda takes a boat trip in the sprawling port of Rotterdam in a quest for the ‘exotic matter,’ and casts the apple as a symbolic object - both a forbidden fruit and the incarnation of Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation. Ho Tzu Nyen follows the millenary cosmo-ecological path of the mythical Malayan Tiger, which continues to haunt South East Asia colonial and communist histories. Also stretching times and geographies, Landings (curators Natasha Ginwala and Vivian Ziherl) survey the mangrove as an ‘in-between’ place that becomes a motif to conceive modes of unauthentic belonging and extra-territoriality, extending its recent Witte de With project, Imperial Pastoral. Landings will initiate a conversation with Rana Hamadeh and present works by Roberto Chabet, Bonita Ely, Rana Hamadeh, Irene Kopelman, Tejal Shah, Lawrence Weiner and Terue Yamauchi, along with photographic materials from the Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam) and the North Stradbroke Island Historical Museum. Jennifer Wen Ma contemplates the various occurrences of the Garden of Eden, from Western medieval paintings to Chinese and Middle-Eastern mythologies, inviting a Kunqu opera singer to voice the utopian projections of lost paradises. Kader Attia observes the construction of evil through the unfolding of the colonial gaze in the pages of early twentieth-century printed matter Riffing on science-fiction and anthropological concepts of indigenousness, non-linear time, and the politics of language, Shezad Dawood embarks on fictional journeys towards a ´possible film´that stages encounters with the mystical. Asli Çavusoglu drifts into the depths of lapis lazuli’s ancient blue, linking the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan with Witte de With, in her search for delirium, absentness and the intangibility of the sky.

Studio Miessen provides The World Turned Inside Out with a spatial framework, triggering encounters between research and audience. Proposing a space of assembly around informal dinner events that permeate the surrounding rooms of Witte de With, this framework generates an ongoing reinterpretation of the material on display, using readings, food preparation, rehearsals, screenings, as well as spatial and archival installations. The spatial set-up draws inspiration from ancient archeological sites, where images, symbols, icons, artworks and other objects of curiosity offer insights into the protagonists’ inquiries.

Working in parallel with the on-site activities of Witte de With, ancient sites in Denmark will become a stage for the launch of new lines of inquiry by Deirdre M. Donoghue. The artist reflects on the maternal figure as a thinker and a producer of knowledge, rather than as a subject of representation and as a domestic figure inseparable from human emotions.

In the company of these protagonists, Witte de With continues to be a mediating agent for artists and thinkers with the aim to upset linear narratives of knowledge with the ambition that art will turn the world inside out. As The World Turned Inside Out continues throughout the Fall of 2013, a growing network of interlocutors from the arts, humanities and politics will shift away from familiar twentieth century references to instigate another mindset?one that reflects on the diversity of materials, cultures, religions and histories, and puts them into work through public talks, live events, film premieres, and performances.

The World Turned Inside Out is a program conceived by Defne Ayas (Director), and developed together with Virginie Bobin (Assistant Curator) and Amira Gad (Associate Curator).