Colonial Surfer - The ReSearch is a project about the contemporary globalized world and power structures within the surf industry and its realm. Surfing is not just a sport but also culture, producer and distributor. In current discussions you hear about the post-colonial but the situation today is better described as neo-colonial. Surfers do travel a lot and sometimes to places unknown to other tourists. The way surfers behave and represent themselves in the adventures search of perfect waves has a lot in common with ancient colonizers and their roles. To surf maintain and conserve already existing structures. History.

Editor: Kristoffer Svenberg

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Drive by shooting – It’s a matter of a power relation.

From a discussion on STNC Facebook page:

Drive-by shooting - It's a matter of a power relation.

EP: Hmm... I'd like to understand that thought. Does it parallel with the aboriginal thought that photographs steal your soul?

STNC: It's about the position and role. Who is mobile and free and who is getting frozen solid. Anyone who can move more freely, such as a surfer who travels the world, has the advantage in matters of representation when holding the camera. From such a free-floating position, it is easier to control the representation of the 'other', the influence of photography and the performative power. It is also very much about his/her own identity by consuming the environment as an "aesthetic surface." The power lies in the ability for geographical movement but manifests itself through pictures and stories. Whose stories are told through these images and why? What is the purpose of the image photographed from this tuktuk ride? In general it is very often photographs that manifest the photographer's role and identity.

EP: Yes, agreed. Just as in quantum physics the presence of the observer alters the outcome of the atom's movement.

STNC: Yes, that’s a way of putting it. But somehow that is also problematic. Since we need to find ways of getting everyone able to be observers alike. Not just the free traveling surfer. In Surfers are The New Colonialists I am observing the surfer and the surfers gaze. I do this to find ways of challenging very unequal perspectives.