Often regarded as historical documents, these images and records were, in Octora’s view, constructed according to whoever held the camera, wrote the narrative or controlled the archive under colonial rule.

Her efforts to confront archival collections, including those held by Leiden University, are not new. In this exhibition, however, the materiality of her work takes on an added dimension through the use of merino wool, which she describes as intricate, slow and tactile. Its physicality embodies a sense of care, undoing the sterile objectification embedded in colonial archives and ethnographic photography.

From The Weekender

The real cost of being a recreational athlete

Read on The Weekender

While many of the works sharply critique the colonial gaze preserved in such images, Octora’s concerns extend beyond the archive. Her practice is driven by a broader sensitivity to injustice and the ways authenticity can be diminished when human lives are reduced to categories, data and objects of study.

Rectifying and disrupting the authority of the archive, Octora cuts apart images from different disciplines and reassembles them into entirely new compositions, using materials such as merino wool and cotton. The process itself becomes an act of reclamation.

The flower looks back

Popular

Analysis: Prabowo’s approval rating 51 percent and falling

Poverty falls, but the line is too low, economists say

Inequality worsens as wealth gap widens