DEJIMA. CONCEPTS OF IN- AND EXCLUSIONDEJIMA. CONCEPTS OF IN- AND EXCLUSION

Artists: Bani Abidi, Meric Algün Ringborg, Arno Auer, Catherine Biocca, Marianna Christofides, Christian Falsnaes, Flaka Haliti, Leon Kahane, Wolfgang Müller, Ahmet Ögüt, Rory Pilgrim, Anca Munteanu Rimnic

 

Dejima – a small artificial island of approx. 9.000 sqm, built in the bay of Nagasaki 1634–1636 by local Japanese merchants. This island remained the only place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and Europe until 1853, for more than 200 years. In the context of the group exhibition at the GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Dejima serves as an image for a situation of national, cultural and social in- and exclusion. In an age positioned between the poles of cosmopolitan utopia and resurgent national ideologies, in which exclusion and isolation are increasingly becoming positive slogans among right-wing populist rhetorics, the international group exhibition at the GAK examines mechanisms of demarcation and marginalisation.