Catalogue > At random

‚Appropriation takes you on a weird ride‘ investigates the strange German enthusiasm for Native Americans in relation to contemporary racism and its deep colonial roots. This fascination, especially with regard to the construction of a german identity, has a rather frightening than impressive chronology: it begins with the first-century Germanic Cherusci chieftan Arminius and stretches to the adventure novels of Karl May and the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Shows in the 1800s, through the ethnographic exhibitions (Völkerschauen) in zoos and circuses and founding of “Indian clubs" at the turn of the twentieth century, onward to the appropriation of Indigenous identities by Nazi ideologists, up until the present day, when new rightwing groups have developed an unsettling identification with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani are visual artists and filmmakers, based in Berlin. They have been working together since 1995. From 2007 until 2010 they have been Associate Professors for Film and Media Art at Sapporo City University, Japan. Since 2015 Nina Fischer is Professor for Experimental Film and Media Art at University of the Arts, Berlin. International art exhibitions and film festivals they have participated in include Berlinale - International Filmfestival Berlin, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Istanbul Film Festival, Sydney Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art,Manifesta 4, Frankfurt, Media City Seoul Biennale, Aichi Triennale, and solo exhibitions e.g. at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Museum of Contemporary Art Hiroshima, K21 - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Maxxi Museum, Rome.