잉카 쇼니바레의 《머리 없는 형상》에 나타난 식민권력의 전복

Abstract

Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s notion of ‘mimicry,’ this paper explores the way in which the Nigerian-English artist Yinka Shonibare’s Headless Figure series can be seen as an attempt to subvert forces of colonialism underlying the history of European imperialism. The artist’s act of resistance is dramatically illustrated by headless figures who present themselves as leaders of the European world at the height of European imperialism in the 18th and the 19th centuries. In an attempt to blur or politicize the borders between colonizers and colonized, the artist dresses the headless figures in Victorian period costume, which are made from Dutch Wax fabrics. Adopting the subversive modes of mimicry and parody, Shonibare’s Headless Figure thus affords the vantage point of the colonized that ultimately takes issue with the way in which forces of European hegemony continue to monopolize the globalist frame of storytelling still today.