In this work from the Barnum series, Roméo Mivekannin looks at the representation of the Venus Hottentot, a enslaved black woman from South Africa whose remarkable morphology earned her to...
In this work from the Barnum series, Roméo Mivekannin looks at the representation of the Venus Hottentot, a enslaved black woman from South Africa whose remarkable morphology earned her to be exhibited as a fairground object and then as an object of study throughout Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Behind the generic and mocking name of Venus Hottentot, a term that has become a stereotype of colonial representation, lies the identity of a woman, Saartjie Baartman, whom the racist ideology of the time tried to erase. By attaching his self-portrait to this woman's body, Roméo Mivekannin once again embodies the body of this woman while affirming, with a slight ironic twist, the importance of writing history in his own terms.