OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! / !SDAEH RIEHT HTIW FFO

01.11.2018–15.12.2018

OFF Biennial Something Else, Downtown Cairo 2018

Artists: Roxy Farhat+Zhala Rifat, Goran Hassanpour, Katarina Löfström, Mattias Norström, Linda Tedsdotter and Theresa Traore Dahlberg. Curated by Power Ekroth & Sara Rossling

Excerpt from exhibition text

As part of the large exhibition Something Else at Darb1718, which focused on rewriting history, the exhibition within the exhibition, OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! / !SDAEH RIEHT HTIW FFO focused on contemporary history using a quote from the classical children’s book by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. What if the reality we perceive as reality is in fact, only fiction – and the fiction is reality? In the times of ”fake news” and fake news, the news does, at times, seem more surreal than the most surreal of fantasies. It poses a classical philosophical problem: how can we be sure that we know anything? This is also a problem young Alice meets in both Wonderland and after walking through the mirror in the sequel, Through the Looking Glass. In one of her encounters, Alice meets a Queen who acts highly unpredictable and irresponsible, and any opposition or annoying questions are met with one phrase,”Off with their heads!”, mirroring some of the real world leaders today. Reading the world through the mirror of fiction, or art, it is possible to question the structures we built up, shedding light on our notions of right and wrong, black and white, what is real and what is surreal.