If it were my turn to speak
Installation, video (11’16”) on monitor, steel frames, polystyrene foam, black board paint, chalk
[from text exhibition booklet]
For the piece If it were my turn to speak, Olthof traced the stories of three women who were born in the 1920s and 1930s: Andrée Blouin, who was born in the Central African Republic and became Chief of Protocol under Patrice Lumumba (the assassinated first democratically elected prime minister of independent Congo); Pauline Opango Lumumba from Congo, who was Lumumba’s wife at the time of his assassination; and queen Fabiola, born in Spain and queen of Belgium during the decolonization of Congo. By bringing these three women together in her work Olthof endeavours to draw a picture of the complex position of women in the anticolonial struggle.
The title is a quote of Andrée Blouin
Commissioned by by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez en Wim Waelput for Show Me Your Archive and I Will Tell You Who is in Power at Kiosk, Ghent, 27.04.17 – 16.06.17
Show Me Your Archive and I Will Tell You Who is in Power combines an exhibition with a public program of lectures, panel discussions, performances and screenings to present stories and testimonies from the history of feminist struggle in Belgium and beyond.
