Beyond return: Art engaging with colonial heritage. In a 30-minute guided tour, you will learn more about the colonial heritage collection and exhibitions and be told about the story behind the artwork.

https://vu.nl/en/stories/beyond-return-and-guided-tour-vu-art-science-gallery

In Pressing Matter, next to scholars from different disciplines, also artists engage with this colonial heritage. Artists can help us understand what it means if objects are taken from their everyday use contexts, local environments, and climate conditions. They seek ways to allow us to ‘empathize’ with these objects, to re-activate them, or to learn from them. Aram Lee does so by inviting us to perform the gestures once used to handle “Tropical Objects”.

In collaboration with VU Art Science Gallery, Katja Kwastek (professor of contemporary art history at VU Amsterdam, and researcher in the Pressing Matter project) and artist Aram Lee (artist and currently resident in the Pressing Matter project) will have a conversation on Aram Lee’s work “Tropical Objects, Turns” (2019), exhibited in the “Creating The Commons” exhibition.