Sala de Proyectos | Universidad de Los Andes | Bogotá, Colombia
Curated by Inti Guerrero and Maya Guerrero
At the end of September 2005, the Danish newspaper “Jyllands-Posten” published various cartoons of Mahoma. Within the Islamic community it caused a great deal of indignation not only because it mocked their god but also because Muslims do not have representative images of Mahoma. As a result, aggression was unleashed on Danish embassies in various capitals of the Arab world.
This specific crisis is the manifestation of a problem generalized in Western Europe, where xenophobia and racism have become the actual scene between the Arab community and the State. Apart from the aforementioned crisis generated by mass media, in Denmark there is still a permanent tension surrounding the explicit prohibition of the construction of mosques, an objective that the Danish-Arab community has continuously insisted on.
The project Ruins by Ian Rhodric, comments on the absence of a legislation that could allow the construction of Muslim temples in Denmark, which are banned by the monarchical government, as it argues that Mosques would visually break with the traditional architecture of Danish cities. A policy that, in between lines, refers not only to traditional architecture, but also has cultural, racial and historic roots. The government has justified its denial of a petition by the Arab community by arguing that the real reason for concern is Muslim security; by gathering in temples they would become an easy target for extreme-right groups.
Ian Rhodric confronts this situation by constructing denied spaces with materials used in the construction of the Danish state. These constructions are personal-individual mosques, that as he says “Resemble the ruins found in archeological excavations, where only the foundation of the building are left to be seen”. Rhodric’s mosques are carefully designed under the parameters and archetypes of a traditional mosque and all of them face Mecca.
Rhodric’s art practice comes from his experience as a professional archeologist working in excavations at the Middle East. The peculiarity of this project is that instead of exhibiting what has been excavated, named and appropriated like it has always been done by archeological and ethnographic European campaigns, it reconstructs a historic and cultural past of two societies that encounter difficulties of simultaneity. The structure of his “public sculptures”, constitute an ambiguous reading between the architectonical foundation of a mosque and at the same time of its ruin. A condition that seems to resemble the aspect of bombarded Arab cities today.
Inti Guerrero and Maya Guerrero
