It is not just about the contrast between the hugely-skirted European women on the beach of a northern resort, the  incongruity
of a semi-naked female torso at a time when it was considered good manners to cover all-too voluptuous table legs and the realisation that nowadays she
would not even cause a ripple of disapproval on beaches in most parts of Europe. It is not only about showing how women from colonised lands were made
available for private-and, on postcards, even public-scrutiny by mainly male colonisers but also about the assumptions of white male power with regard
to identity and its construction, permeability and its susceptibility to negotiation.
The texts for the work are taken from SCRAM, a book (now out of print and, since 9.11, touchingly naïve considering what
is happening in the ‘land of opportunities.’) about the relative ease of giving up one identity and assuming another. They underline the point
even identity is a choice: “... you may have few helpful family members, no loyal friends, no valuable career that could not be found elsewhere,
a hankering to leave Detroit for the West, secret desires to keep going west and tend bar in Lahaina, Maui, and no aversion to hitching a ride on a yacht
leaving Lahaina to drop
in on a South Sea island.”
It is restricted only by poverty: “Limits on financial resources are probably the greatest obstacle to relocation within another
country. |
 |
If you had huge sums of money, you might realize a very comfortable and civilized stay in the south of France - much like many deposed
leaders of state who now live there. With fewer resources, the only inexpensive non-Soviet European nations are Ireland, Portugal, and Greece. A step
cheaper are the emerging eastern-European countries, but you would undoubtedly find a poorer standard of living and almost no chance of finding work.
Cheaper still are the somewhat  unstable, “third
world” nations of Asia, Africa, and South America.”
The sangam of power that assumes (white male) identity to be a negotiable commodity is the same that can consider the exchange of one
piece of territory - Helgoland - for ‘interests’ in others - Zanzibar and mainland Africa. It also oversaw the changing national identity
of another (Norderney). It was also this presumption of power which allowed people to be treated as trade articles and businesses to be made from “Wild
West” shows in London, from “Ashanti” villages in Berlin and Vienna, “Pygmy” exhibitions in Paris and the English Parliament. |
