LES ARCHIVES DES BARBARES

2003

The exhibition DID YOU EVER DREAM OF BECOMING BARBARIAN? on view in Paris in 2003 was part of the larger project LES ARCHIVES DES BARBARES dealing with the figure of the barbarian. The project analyses the function bestowed upon the barbarians in the formation of the cultural identity of a political unit, for which they are always the other. It is never the barbarians themselves who write their own history, but the others, those, for whom the barbarian is the menacing other. With the foundation of the archives of the barbarians, however, we take the role of the subject of history making. Starting from the position of the barbarians, the polemics against them are turned around. The barbarian no longer appears in connection with the menace of civilisation through brute and uncivilised force, but on the contrary holds the promise of freedom and adventure.

The main piece in the exhibition is an artists’ book collecting publications which refer to the “barbarian”, to “barbarism” etc. in their title. The images of the book covers and titles are arranged to form a narrative around the figure of the barbarian. In part this narration works in a literal way through inserting words between the book titles to form sentences, partly the narrative thread is completed by the pictures featuring on the book covers or other elements. In the course of the narration, which leads through the different contexts in which the term appears, the figure of the barbarian is more and more blurred and it is increasingly unclear, who and what “the barbarians” are supposed to be.