Piñata
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Commemorative and participatory installation for the 50th anniversary of the Afro-Asiatisches Institut
Daniela Brasil and Nayarí Castillo
Assistance: Helene Thümmel, Michael Tasch, Patricia Wess, Thomas Kalcher
Graz, Austria. 22/10/2014
To enrich the festivities for the 50th anniversary of the AAI, a contemporary piñata: this is a celebratory object that consists of a container usually made with paper, cloths, ceramics or other materials and filled with toys, candies or any small gifts to be given at a party. As a playful ritual, the guests at the event are invited to form a circle around the structure and break it, so that a rain of gifts and colour showers the occasion.
The Buckminster Fuller Dymaxion map and the Gall-Peters Projection were chosen as inspiration for the content and the structure of the piñata. These propose world-views that deconstruct the hegemony of Eurocentrism – as disseminated with the Mercator projection – by displaying the continents’ surface areas with proportional accuracy, as well as by repositioning the cardinal points and the centre of map.
Inside the piñata 300 gift combos were prepared to be given to the AAI anniversary guests. A small bag handmade from textiles donated to the Institute by loved ones was filled with a fusion of surprising elements that works around plural visions of the world.
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