Other Futures

During Other Futures festival 2021 at de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, Yen-Ling Tsai gave a talk on the 'Golden Snail Opera'.

"The tropics exist as a dreamy respite from “real” life ...for some people. But it’s not a holiday for the 3.2 billion people who live in the tropical zone. White-made media reinforces a racialized, exotic vacation trope, training their cameras on and constructing sets with gangly palm trees, pristine beaches, glistening oceans, and deferential Pacific Islanders, Asians, Caribbean, and/or Indigenous peoples. This is the cherry-picked, colonialist view of tropical lands, which are presented as escapist fantasies and prizes for white Americans and Europeans.