This World Is White No Longer

"This world is no longer white and never will be". With this sentence from his "Stranger in the village" (1953), the U.S. writer James Baldwin formulates a decisive critique of Western, white thinking. What would happen if the white glasses were removed? Already upon entering the exhibition "This World Is White No Longer. Views of a Decentralized World" at the Rupertinum, the focus changes for visitors. "You always measure images of other cultures with your own criteria," said Thorsten Sadowsky, director of the Museum der Moderne, at the exhibition's opening in April. A process that directly results in questioning one's own position. What if.  We move on, to the 2nd floor. There we find the exhibition of the same name, "This World Is White No Longer," by the Photography and New Media Class of the Mozarteum University. In cooperation with the Museum der Moderne, students show their views from the examination of the manifestations of racism and xenophobia, with the questioning of identity ascriptions and with the search for possibilities of power critique and self-empowerment. The black BB is Chancellor of Austria. Afrodite rules over a fictitious Ethiopia. The familiar patterns and dresses are discarded. Angelika Wienerroither shows with "Utopia" that togetherness would also be possible in a different way. The sculpture of three halves of a circle by Hanna Imhoff entitled "Racist Society" slowly rotates in the room and reveals a black and a white side. Numerous visitors* have already transferred the color from one side to the other with their fingers; as if it were a matter of course, what was thought to be opposite becomes a much more exciting mixture. And in the audio contribution of her work "I about me about her about her" Eva-Maria Schitter tells of a beggar in her house entrance and of her own discomfort and bad conscience about it. "I would like to sit down next to her". What if?  Not only since the violent death of George Floyd by police violence, the transnational movement #BlackLivesMatter or Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hills We Climb" on the occasion of the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the USA, the different forms of racism and the "white imprint" of the world are topics. The Photography and New Media class was also engaged in an intensive discussion and work process leading up to the exhibition, including their own positions: Where does racism begin? What opinion do I actually have myself when it comes to illuminating different forms of discrimination? With their works, the students make far-reaching connections - to the general discriminatory mechanisms of social media and to neo-colonialist practices of tourism on the one hand, and to the individual approach within Austrian, European culture and economy on the other. The exhibition depresses and enlightens in equal parts. The staircase up to the 3rd floor of the Rupertinum is lined with individual exhibition announcement posters, designed from the students' respective points of view. Almost involuntarily, while looking at them, one asks oneself which position one takes, where one listens, where away? Finally, in the reading room, the last room of the exhibition, the Sculpting Feminism Reading Group with books and a video station invites you to linger and reflect on what you have seen and the open questions. Using digital performances via Zoom, collaborative readings of feminist texts produced audio files that were transformed into exhibition pieces. Shared reading, speaking, and exchanges about what is read are used to create atmospheres that allow texts to be physically experienced through voice, accent, or intonation. "This World Is White No Longer" is a statement of the different approaches to structural and everyday racism and likewise a space for negotiation within the artistic debate. The exhibition makes it clear that there cannot be a generally valid opinion here, but that positions within the subject matter are very well defined. At the same time, it opens up a space in which paradigms can be discussed, exchanged, modified, and thus the format of the debate continuously changes. A process that perhaps releases one's own consciousness from literal black-and-white thinking and slowly makes the mostly invisible white privileges perceptible. If only through the weight of a business card. Hannah Imhoff's take-home work "Calling Cards" sums up awareness for greater empathy of any skin color through a few words, "I'm white. Are you?" What if you weren't?   (First published in Uni-Nachrichten / Salzburger Nachrichten on June 5, 2021)