Encounters: ‘Enjoy Poverty’ and 'By Aeroplane to Pygmy Land'

15 February until 14 April 2013

The remarkable and provocative film Episode III: Enjoy Poverty (2009) by Renzo Martens and the film By Aeroplane to Pygmy Land (1926) take you on a journey, looking for Papuans of former New Guinea and neocolonial relationships in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The encounter between these two films is an additional element in the exhibition Encounters.

You can view the films from 15 February until 14 April 2013 in the Gallery of the museum.

Enjoy Poverty

Enjoy Poverty (2009) Enjoy Poverty is a polemical film by artist Renzo Martens about about media imagery of African poverty. Martens’ provocative statement is that images of poverty are a resource unjustly taken from Africa by the West. Martens builds on the historical genre of the expedition film. An example is By Aeroplane to Pygmyland.

By Aeroplane to Pygmyland

By Aeroplane to Pygmyland (1926) is like Enjoy Poverty about watching and being watched. The film shows an American-Dutch expedition to former New Guinea. Besides a documentary, this colonial film was a means to paint a specific picture of the relations between the Western and non-Western world. The film emphasizes the 'superiority' of Westerners while the Papuans are portrayed as ignorant.

Credits
Enjoy Poverty, 2009
Renzo Martens (Netherlands, 1973), 90 min.
Loan: Frans Hals Museum / De Hallen, Haarlem

By Aeroplane to Pygmyland
Netherlands/United States, 1926, 88 min.
Loan: Eye, Amsterdam. Ex-collection Tropenmuseum

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