VIENNA.- Of all the waves of explorations known in history, from the Carthaginian in West Africa in 500 BC, through the Greek‘s ventures in Northern Europe around 380 – c. 310 BC, the Han dynasty‘s exploration of Central Asia in the 2nd century BC, the Vikings exploring most of Europe and setting foot in America around 800 to 1040 AD, the Polynesian exploration of central and south pacific until 1280, the Chinese exploration of Southeast and South Asia as well as the East African coast in the 14th century, the most striking of all, most productive and enriching for some and at the same time most devastating of all ‚exploration ages‘ was what has been coined the ‚European Age of Discovery‘. The stories of the European explorers that charted the world from early 14th to 19th centuries in their discovery spree – from Columbus to Humboldt, Cao to Cook, from Dias, da Gama or Magellan to Vespucci, Tasman or Bering – have been told and retold.

Their praises of how they ‚discovered‘ lands and waters, vertebrates and invertebrates, how they were the first to crest mountains and their contributions in the natural sciences and geography have been sung. Accolades have been given to the explorers for setting trade routes between continents, which they ploughed with the three G’s at the forefront of their minds: Gold, God and Glory.

So while the ‚European Age of Exploration‘ is still highly celebrated in most of the world, with countries, cities, rivers, animals and plants still carrying the names of its main protagonists, and with countries setting up cultural and political agendas and institutions in reverence and commemoration of these explorers, it is important to reflect on the other consequences of this Age of Exploration, beyond the advantages evident from the European perspective or viewpoint of the axis of power.

GOLD ... In the midst of an economic stalemate in Europe due to the then disputed Mediterranean and the perilous Arabian Peninsula that hindered trade with Asia, European kings had ushered explorers into the high seas to find alternative ways to get to the sources of gold, spices and other resources. This thus opened the way for an age of global capitalism and imperialism. Apart from an uneven economic structure built on exploitation, these explorations led to the initiation of the transatlantic slave trade as unpaid labourers for the European plantations. The economic models set up then are still preeminent in the contemporary.

GOD ... An important part of the companhia of conquistadors were the clergy men that were at the same time companions of warriors, who came with a firearm in one hand and the bible in the other. While missioning and securing religious territory for the pope and kings back in Europe were more of an excuse to get more support for their trips, these explorations led to the eradication of autochthone religions and cultures in their bid to impose a monotheistic Christian religion to the world. They went as far as not only forcefully converting natives to Christianity, but as stipulated e.g. under Castilian law prohibited non-Catholics from dwelling in captured territory and thereby prompting a Hispanicization and Catholicisation of the whole territory.

GLORY ... An accumulation of wealth and territory, a superimposition of your civilisation, cultures and religions, a propagation of your epistemologies and thereby destruction of other knowledge systems is nothing if it is not recognised and glorified. It is said that one of the most important power installation mechanisms is the act of naming. Thus by naming countries, cities, insects, plants, animals and mountains with the likes of Humboldt, Magellan, Tasman, Bering or Cook their glories live on. At the time of the ‚European Age of Discovery‘, the newly invented and popularised medium of writing came in handy in the dissemination of the explorers‘ claims of discovery, their righteous deeds and the knowledge they had acquired. Such was the case when Humboldt disseminated the information that he was the first to climb mount Chimborazo, which was strange as knowledge of that mountain had since time immemorial been part and parcel of myths and knowledge systems of the Ecuadorian people. Glory also came on both sides of the Atlantic as explorers were either feared as gods in the conquered land or honoured as great knights, scientists, and visionaries in their fatherlands. All these came along with the spread of diseases that were imported into the conquered territories, an erasure of native civilizations, cultures and languages, peoples and paving the way for colonialism.

The exhibition project The Conundrum of the Imagination aims at exploring the paradigm exploration and discovery as an empirical system. The project is not about pointing the forefinger at anyone, not about Columbus nor Humboldt nor any of their peers, but rather about humanity‘s insatiable desire for wealth that goes beyond the proverbial searching for and sharing greener pastures, but rather possessing and depriving others of those pastures.

The exhibition investigates humanity‘s endless quest for knowledge, but also the tendency to foster certain epistemological systems and suppress others through selection mechanisms. The project gets granular on religion and culture as tools for the crafting of identities within societies, but as weapons for the construction of the other and similarly utensils for suppression. The exhibition seeks at situating the concept of exploration and discovery within a genealogy of academic disciplines, e.g. Anthropology.

The Conundrum of the Imagination aims at investigating continuities of the notion of exploration from its earliest days into the contemporary. For this, a spotlight has been set on the way exploration of back then is reflected in the exploration today of the moon and other planets beyond the earth. But even more crucially, the project looks at the Internet as a contemporary terrain for exploration, where the same laws of three G’s are applicable.

The project picks up on James Baldwin‘s question what if the explorers were actually discovered by what they found and not the other way round. The project is about the human psyche and the predicaments that our minds set us up in when the “conundrum of the imagination dictates, discovers, or can dismember what we feel, or what we find,” as is the case with the concept of exploration.

The presented works are new commissions inspired by the concept of The Conundrum of Imagination and each artist presents an installation and a performance/lecture piece.