Knowing - Alana Jelinek - RCMC

Knowing

Collections of Papuan artefacts

Knowing (2015) began with an invitation by artist, Alana Jelinek, to various groups of Papuan, Javanese and Dutch people to come to Museum Volkenkunde and discuss objects in the collection.

Participants were invited to talk about objects from their own cultural background and to talk about other objects, with a particular emphasis on the objects from Papua. Only hands and voices were filmed so that the emphasis remains on the stories, points of view and knowledge. Twenty two hours of nuanced, interlaced and complex stories have been whittled down to 48 minutes. In the end, it is an art film and not a regular documentary. Some of the editing choices are artistic ones, asking: what do we know when we think we know?