by Souad Zeineddine
The reversal of the gaze – whether in anthropology or in art history –, is neither a banal nor a simple undertaking. Both the ability to reverse the gaze and the practiced reversal of the gaze are necessary conditions for the critical inquiry of the interrelatedness of contemporary power relations and the production of knowledge. Reversing the gaze is not just a productive mode of knowledge production but goes hand in hand with taking on the ‘response-ability’[1] (Haraway and Kenney 2015: 256-257) for past-present-future knowledge production, circulation, mediation and accessibility of knowledge in its various forms.
„Der/Die Europäer/in wird selbst zum Objekt des Blickes und Gegenstand der Darstellung. […]. Die Verfremdung des Eigenen, die uns in diesen Skulpturen begegnet, ist manchmal komisch, manchmal verstörend.“
(Brus 2017: 123)
„Unsicher blickte ich mich um, […] mehr Objekt der Beobachtung als Beobachter.“
(Zillinger 2013: 17)
These quotes, whether implicitly or explicitly, state that the production and mediation of knowledge give rise to similar emotions as those brought out by the debate on restitution that is currently fore fronted in the global arena. Taking into account the multiple vulnerabilities and including the manifold emotions that are explicitly sometimes implicitly articulated and negotiated in the debate, I would like to make a transgenerational and interdisciplinary contribution to the restitution debate. This might be an overambitious and possibly daring attempt, but let us see where it takes us…