Khairulddin Wahab is widely known for his paintings that articulate his criticism toward history and the colonial power structure in Singapore. However, for Biennale Jogja, and for the very first time, he presents a photography project he worked on in 2014 during a trip to Europe.
In his work, he picked and employed the colonial photography mode of expression in which photography serves as the West’s colonial gaze toward the colonies. In colonial photography, power and control are exhibited through either landscape drawings or portraits with the colonies’ landscape as the background, like souvenirs.
Through this project, he seems to propose a subversive scenario challenging what is deemed normal in the world/Western discourse of power. It is articulated in the portraits of himself wearing Malay traditional attire in European exotic landscapes.
Photo source: uobpoy.com
