 The
people looking at us are doing so from a doubly-constructed world. Real people, in real costumes, in real places. But they are Viennese; the costumes
come from their adopted worlds and the places they were photographed are to be found neither on some far-flung continent nor on the many islands of this
planet but rather in and around Vienna. Their own locality functions as a film set for their assumed identities. The camera’s ability to locate and detach
simultaneously persuades us that we are in an English living room, the Tuareg desert or the Masai savannah.
On one level Xenographische Ansichten presents images of people who have adopted another culture as subjectively central to
their identity, without having (or wanting) to relinquish their culture of origin. They are not just dressing up for a few exotic moments. It is not
a case of “Mr. X dressed as a Tuareg” but a case of expressing an alternative
or partial identity. |
 |
This hybridity of cultural identity allows us to move into a special kind of terrain, an ambiguous space which enables us to assess
our reactions. Have they ‘gone native’, with all the derogatory implications? Do they carry passports to two worlds? Have they become cosmopolitans,
permanent expatriates or cultural dancers? Whether their motivation is ‘serious’ or fuelled by childhood dreams, Paul Parin puts it succinctly. He says,
of the latter, that they are ‘... realities of the mind. They are not a substitute for real travelling but often lead to an unbridled yearning to walk
in the landscape or live there. One can read this in many of the texts. Childhood fantasies like this are not laid aside, but make up the ‘foreign’ part
of one’s life. They integrate the diversity of experience and lend plasticity to the newly
discovered reality.’ |
