Colonial-era photos reimagined by 20 artists at Museum Rietberg

Museum Rietberg in Zurich presents 'A Kind of Paradise: Colonial-Era Photography in Contemporary Art,' curated by Nanina Guyer, running until 6 September. The exhibition features 20 artists who repurpose colonial-era archival photographs into sculptures, films, and recontextualized images. Artists include Sammy Baloji, Rosana Paulino, Sasha Huber, Dinh Q. Lê, Wendy Red Star, Omar Victor Diop, Zenaéca Singh, and Andrea Chung. The show is divided into four sections: artists as archivists, confronting stereotypes, healing, and critical fabulation. Huber's work 'Tailoring Freedom—Delia, profile' (2023) reclothes enslaved subjects in armor made from staple-gun piercings. Diop collaborates with filmmaker Lee Shulman to insert himself into 1950s-60s American family scenes. Singh sets family photos in sugar glass. Chung uses leaves printed with faces from the Rietberg collection, gradually covered in salt. Guyer notes that digital archives have made such photos more accessible, and that photography 'collapses time' to bring historical stories into the present.