Who’s Talking? A research and exhibition project by KOLK 17 Figure Theater & Museum

Perspectives are like unreliable narrators. The word perspective itself seems to imply some kind of accepted notion rooted in experience whether personal or theoretical. However, no matter how studied, researched, layered, a perspective is still a composed and unequal bias of unequal cultures, fictional narratives and opinion.

The Colonial Closet is an explorative performance film examining the continents of the Kolk 17 Puppet archives with a focus on Afrucan puppets and their provenance. An experimentation in changing oprspectives from the viewer, to the maker, across cultures and academia incite debate on how one deals with performative pieces loaded with colonial history. Opening the colonial closet, Jessica Nupen playfully interrogates its contents. 

Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media