Zico Albaiquni featured in MOED Decolonial Dialogues with the Golden Coach

1 Mar 2022

Decolonial Dialogues with the Golden Coach takes the form of a virtual dialogue in a simulated space presenting works as digitally rendered images. Zico Albaiquni’s The Archipelago of the Day Before (2019) is computerized and situated amongst a galactic environment, developed by Museum of Equality and Difference.

The exhibition highlights the iconographic stereotypes and narratives reverberated by The Golden Coach, a panel which symbolizes systematic racism. It traces the connections the commemoration of Dutch colonial past, the present socio-political position of immigrants in the Netherlands and the nexus between colonialism, capitalism, and environmental destruction.

Albaiquni is known for his complex investigations into Indonesia’s landscape and ideas, through particular historical figures and icons in nationalistic rallies. In The Archipelago of the Day Before, Albaiquni interweaves numerous icons and motifs, specifically The Mooi Indie (‘beautiful Indies’) tradition, presenting a romanticised and utopian idea of Indonesian landscape and its people.

Albaiquni’s works also challenge conventional painting perspectives and formats, utilising trompe l’oeil illusions and disrupting the rectangular borders of the canvas. Versions of Indonesia, explore the similarities between colonial and post-war representations with recent developments in nationalistic campaigns, alongside broader ideas on the relationship between the artist, artwork, the viewer and art history.

Decolonial Dialogues with the Golden Coach encourage viewers to read our common history from a decolonial and planetary perspective and emphasize underrepresented voices and perspectives. Old stories will receive alternative interpretation. Well-known icons will be situated in unknown context.