About

The Project ‘1975’ blog is made to inform each visitor extensively about the current programme at SMBA. Project ‘1975’ is a two-year programme exploring the relationship between contemporary art and colonialism. How do artists view the historic or contemporary acts of colonial powers? What role does visual culture play in today’s colonial practices? In the art world, what has come to replace the tacitly embraced multicultural normalization of the nineteen-nineties? In a programme spanning exhibitions, seminars and publications, SMBA focuses on these and other issues, and adds its voice to the globalisation debate.

Attention will also be turned on the specific situation of the Netherlands; 1975 is the year in which the Netherlands became more or less postcolonial. Nevertheless, the question remains: can historic and present-day relations be considered truly postcolonial if relationships between societies persist in being economically and culturally unequal and, to some extent, involuntary. Project ‘1975’ offers a platform to artists and thinkers who reflect on the meaning of post-colonialism.

Project ‘1975’ addresses themes such as migration, geo-politics, economics, the representation of these issues in the media, transnationalism and their impact on contemporary art and artistic positions. In addition to exhibitions, Project ‘1975’ comprises a discursive programme, publications and a cycle of specially commissioned art theoretical essays. Moreover the programme includes projects organised by guest curators and an exchange with the art community in Ghana.

Colofon

Project 1975 is an initiative of the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.

Organisation:
Jelle Bouwhuis
Kerstin Winking

Blog editor:
Tessa Verheul