“…visuality is a salutary reminder that visuality was and remains a cutting-edge tactic of coloniality: it is theirs, not ours, and they make better use of it” (Mirzoeff 500).

Part 3 (c) (Post/De/Neo)colonial visualities of the Visual Culture Reader (third edition) starts with a historical survey of colonial exhibition practices at universal expositions (Mitchell), pausing for a moment to consider western fascination and desires associated with representations of harems/harem women (Alloula), considering specific locals and political positionalities, while examining the link between the ‘primitive’ and Modern art and “naturalized conventions of otherness” in contemporary exhibitions (Enwezor).

This section of the Reader, is complementary to the content of my last Blog Post on the ‘Couple in the Cage’ documentary.  In this section, through his selection of articles, Mirzeoff directs us to consider that whether a performance, documentary, photograph, colossal rock-cut sculpture, or organizing and managing space, we are engaged in a process of seeing, and that this process is not without it’s history, and historically the viewer tends to be in a position of power.  How would one/a group subvert and attempt to re-distribute the power of the gaze – blow-up sacred representation of the Buddha?  Although disheartening, Flood presents a study, in his article “Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm and the Museum,” that points to how the west elides the many intricacies and political differences amoungst the Muslim world.  In his article, Flood challenges us to look deeper.