Panel talk: Which perspective is the truth?
Date: Saturday, September 28
Time: 13:00-15:00
On Saturday, September 28, Cobra Academy invites you to a panel talk. Which perspective is the truth?
The photo exhibition by French Pierre Verger & Dutch Diana Blok brings together images by two divergent photographers. As a visitor you ask yourself: how do they connect and how do they differ?
Verger captured African culture as an anthropologist – and thus an outsider – while Blok was part of the LGBTQ+ community and captured them as an insider of the group in her portfolio. Verger’s role as an outsider to African tribes, as well as enslaved groups in Latin America, is one that raises difficult questions. Questions we hope to illuminate with you during our panel discussion.
Can his art, made from that anthropological perspective, speak the truth? Or can only the insider of a community do so honestly?
About Pierre Verger
From May 31 through September 29, 2024, Museum Cobra will exhibit a selection of works from the extensive oeuvre of photographer Pierre Verger (Paris 1902 – Salvador 1996). Pierre Verger was born in Paris and eventually found his home in the Brazilian city of Salvador. The Pierre Verger – The One That I am Not is a celebration of his photographic legacy, his heart and his ceaseless quest for self-discovery. The exhibition features more than 160 works he made during various trips. This is the first time a solo exhibition has been shown in the Netherlands.
“I began to travel, not so much out of the desire to do ethnographic research or reportage, but out of the need to distance myself, to free myself and escape from the environment in which I had lived until then and whose prejudices and rules of behavior did not make me happy… However, the feeling that a vast world existed did not leave my mind, and the desire to see and photograph it took me to other horizons.”
About Diana Blok
The exhibition I challenge you to love me presents a survey of the work of photographer and artist Diana Blok (Uruguay, 1952). Blok was born in Montevideo and lived in Colombia and Guatemala. She studied sociology in Mexico City. In 1974 she emigrated to Amsterdam and developed into a highly successful photographer and artist. Through her work, Diana explores issues of identity, gender, sexual diversity and culture.
About the speakers
Sioe Jeng Tsao (33), known as SEEYOUSIOE, is a queer, East Asian artist based in Rotterdam. Through their multidisciplinary work, which includes paintings and digital illustrations, they colorfully and critically explore themes of LGBTQIA+ rights, climate change and racial justice. SEEYOUSIOE combines personal and political themes, making their art a powerful platform for social change and self-expression.
Phaedra Haringsma is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Amsterdam. She is interested in transatlantic history and contemporary colonial relations and pursued a master’s degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics. Currently, Phaedra is Guest Correspondent Colonial Present at De Correspondent. She is also involved in the research project Decolonial Futures at the University of Amsterdam, and gives tours at The Black Archives.
With a reading by Sascha Sylbing:
Questioning the absurdity of our everyday; that’s what poetry exists for. At least, according to Sascha Sylbing (she/who/he). As a word artist, program maker, moderator, dreamer and bearer of various fluid identities, Sascha explores lived reality. In this, queerness, conflict, and feelings of alienation often find their place in Sascha’s work. Always from curiosity and vulnerability, often with a touch of activism and a touch of brutality. With the hope of touching you and leaving you with new questions.
