On the 25th of May I was lucky enough to be invited along to a private view of the Miss Landmine Angola 2007 Expo at the Norwegian Leprosy Museum in Bergen, Norway as part of the PhD workshop on New Perspectives in Disability Research. This was a really interesting event, with the artist, Morten Traavik present for questions. For our sins, we were interviewed by press for our responses to the work (available at http://www.miss-landmine.org/ go there and make up your own mind!).  Steve Brown and I were cornered for our opinions for Bergen’s Tidende, and you can see the article here.  Both Steve and I were paraphrased, but a rough translation of a translation provided by Jan-Kåre Breivik reads:

…"Stephen Brown is in discussion with Sarah Moore. She is from Nottingham, he directs "Center for disability research" in Honolulu. Brown believes that the exhibition provides a multifaceted and partly contradictory impression, dependant upon whether one looks at it from a social or a cultural perspective.

– The first thing that trigger me is a certain irony. First the West exports landmines to Africa. Then we import the victims in the shape of such exhibitions. Both can be approached as forms of western exploitation. But the the pictures function perfectly as portraits in their own right, as expressions of art.

– As a white woman I feel difficult seeing black women exposed like this, directed by a white man. But at the same time – these women meets your gaze in a particular way. One finds oneself a place in between unpleasantness and joyful appreciation of life. Yes, this is multifaceted. And that is a good thing, adds Sarah. ……