The Making of (Post)Colonial World's Fairs

Alexa Färber

doi:10.11588/riha.2024.2.95414

Titel

The Making of (Post)Colonial World's Fairs

Autor*in

Alexa Färber

Universität Wien

Abstract

This article explores the agency of (post)colonial professional self-positioning through globalised forms of representational work. It deepens our understanding of the constraints and duress from the colonial past involved in the making of (post)colonial world’s fairs by analysing representational work related to the Moroccan contribution to Expo 2000. It shifts the perspective from the aesthetics of Expo contributions to the process of making aesthetic objects for such a world’s fair. Stressing the specific limited and intensified temporality of representational work in the historical context of world’s fairs allows for insights into the aspirations of those who are engaged in this mode of project work. Taking an ethnographic perspective onto the working context in the Moroccan Expo office, I will show how the daily practice allowed for a certain 'neverthelessness' when facing the duress of the colonial past, as described by Laura Ann Stoler (2016). Finally, the Moroccan contribution to Expo 2000 will be briefly discussed with respect to later and as yet unrealised pavilions.

Stichwort

world's fairproject workMoroccoColonialismPostcolonialismOrientalismcultural analysis

Objekt-Typ

journal article

Sprache

Englisch [eng]

Persistent identifier

phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:2071304

DOI

10.11588/riha.2024.2.95414

Erschienen in

Titel