“Looking for Donkeys” by Danish born, New York City based artist Nanna Debois Buhl utilizes five pieces including drawings, wallpaper, a film and a reading room for her book “Journey in Two Directions” which includes photographs and research which the SAAG commissioned.
“They brought a lot of animals like pigs, goats and donkeys over to the Virgin islands when they settled,” Buhl observed.
“There were smaller numbers, about 50 of them then. Now there’s over 400 wild donkeys,” she continued adding she was inspired to research and create her latest work by a display on the subject of early Twentieth Century Danish colonialism at renown Danish amusement park, the Tivoli.
She was inspired by a speaker — a 70-year-old man who spoke of his experience of being taken from his parents as a child and brought to Denmark under the promise that he would be returned.
“I’ve been over there two times and produced several pieces. It’s been a journey,” she said.
“ I went to meet the people and talk to them about it. And there’s parallel political situations today,” she said adding Denmark still colonizes Greenland and the Faroe Island.
She is in Lethbridge for the week to set up the exhibit and speak at the premiere, March 13 at 7 p.m.
The exhibit runs until April 25 at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
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