Culture Constructing Nature, 2005

In modern societies exoticism is a means of presenting people as “different”: the fascination of something foreign merges with the desire to maintain a barrier between one’s own society and that which is foreign. The motifs depicted on picture postcards from abroad are exotic as are the animals and things from distant places exhibited behind bars or glass – the alien and possibly dangerous, is tamed, something which in this context not only satisfies our curiosity, but also demonstrates the power our institutions exert over it.
The “faraway” characteristic of the exotic does not necessarily pertain to the distance between continents. In his series Culture Constructing Nature, Mattias Olofsson refers to a famous young woman from Lapland known as Stor-Stina (Big Stina), who during the nineteenth century was exhibited at fairs as a sensation due to her size. Dressed in Stina’s traditional attire of Sami origin, and presented in museum showcases, Olofsson demonstrates how artificial such exhibitions of the exotic are. At the same time he shows that no less for our society, the construction and exclusion of the Other – whether owing to appearance, culture or sexuality – is neither museological nor historical. (JB)