THE EIGHTH CONGRESS: THE CURIOUS CASE OF EUROPE
Organisation: National Portrait Gallery and Delfina Foundation
Time: 11 November 2011 7:00pm -
Place: National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin's Place, London WC2
National Portrait Gallery and Delfina Foundation Present
The Eighth Congress: The Curious Case of Europe
Looking at the world as a picture, questions posed, become surprised, as the figures in the picture move about, re-arranging the image of the world as we know it, and as the spectator demands. Looking at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris, Sarah Rifky will attempt to piece together what really happened when the Egyptian Delegation, who headed to the Eighth International Orientalist Congress in Stockholm, that same year, stopped for 18 days in Paris, and experienced Cairo in its spectacular appearance at the world exhibition.
In the autumn of 2011, while on a research residency in London, serendipity strikes and Rifky meets an artist who gives an account of herself as 'the last Orientalist': Vanessa Hodgkinson. Describing their first encounter, Rifky says Hodgkinson, a young beautiful woman, was dressed as an Orientalist image of herself, had deliberately and in most theatrical fashion, fallen off her chair. Intrigued by this incident, Rifky follows Hodgkinson in conversation, and as it turns out, Hodgkinson, a living contemporary artist, had been present, over a century ago at the Eighth International Congress in Stockholm (1889). She had also stopped in Paris, en route to Sweden, to see the acclaimed erection of the Eiffel Tower.
Part of the National Portrait Gallery's Chasing Mirrors season.
11th November 2011 | 19:00
National Portrait Gallery
St. Martin's Place
London
WC2E 0HE
Free | More Info