Authenticity, Novelty, and Uniqueness

The lecture performance will be preceded by Kalmyk traditional snacks and tea in the garden at 16:00 followed by a discussion in the auditorium. 

The Kalmyk people, Indigenous to the steppe region of the lower Volga River and colonized by the Russian Empire, participated in the ethnological exposition for the first time in 1883 at the Berlin Zoo. The show was so popular that it traveled to Dresden, Paris, and Hamburg. But the entertainment industry of such Völkerschauen—people’s shows—was integrated into a broader paradigm that produced racialized and subjugated Others. Organizer of the zoos, German merchant Carl Hagenbeck was an honorary member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory for granting scientists access to scrutinize the participants of his exhibitions. Their belongings often ended up in ethnographic museums, reinforcing their framing as prehistoric relics. 

The title—Authenticity, Novelty, and Uniqueness (Echtheit, Neuheit, and Eigenartigkeit in German)—reflects this process. Used by Hagenbeck and his impresarios, these words described the criteria of Kalmyks as “worthy” for his shows.

Victoria attempts to trace a path back from this dehumanizing paradigm. By clearly vocalizing the names of Kalmyk participants of the Völkerschauen, she recalls their lives and the hardships that led them to these shows. Her project asks how artistic practice can help us move from methods of ethnological museums, which still hold fragmented traces of our peoples, to sustainable ways of remembering. It invites us to hang together in the critical field of gaps and questions.  

Authenticity, Novelty, and Uniqueness is realised as part of the project Paths of Memory, dedicated to Indigenous and non-western ways of remembering. It is a part of the Nomadic Program 2024-2025, Repetition is a Form of Changing, organized by the​​​​​​​ Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art (Middelburg, the Netherlands) and curated by League of Tenders.