Asia
Virlani Hallberg
Receding Triangular Square
2012
Receding Triangular Square
In collaboration with psychoanalyst and cultural theorist Leon Tan, Virlani Hallberg’s Receding Triangular Square explores traditional Chinese and Taiwanese modalities of psychological healing as alternatives to dominant Western psychiatric and therapeutic practices. By juxtaposing the differing modalities, Hallberg and Tan make connections between psychological practices and histories of colonization and de-colonization. They challenge Western scientific standards of universality, rationality, and truth. Scenes from the video also highlight the ways in which mental despair and illness result from the trauma, displacement, and alienation caused by the colonization’s destruction of traditional cultures.
Virlani Hallberg is a video and photographic artist living and working in Berlin. Her research-based and collaborative artworks are concerned with the aesthetics of inter-subjectivity, exploring the ways in which the visual connects individuals to society and to their common roots. She often looks at individual, collective, and multi-generational traumas as they relate to systems of power. Her recent works address the lasting effects of systemic violence upon everyday life.