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A walk-through the exhibition ‘MONOCULTURE – A Recent History’ at M HKA (Antwerp), with Nick Aikens and Nav Haq in conversation

 
CONSIDERING MONOCULTURE Soviet Corn Campaign

Soviet Corn Campaign Poster, За велику кукурудзу! (For Great Corn!), 1962. Published by Міністерство культури УРСР (Ministry of Culture of The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic). Image: M HKA.

Nick Aikens, co-organiser of the two-day conference “Considering Monoculture" in conversation with Nav Haq, curator of the exhibition MONOCULTURE – A Recent History.

Nick Aikens: Where did the idea come from to stage an exhibition on monoculture, and how did you begin your research?

Nav Haq: Exploring the notion of ‘monoculture’ was related to thinking about the stagnation of the ‘multiculturalism’ debate. Like my conceptualisation of the Gothenburg Biennial in 2017 on the subject of secularity, which opens on to questions of ethics and cohabitation, the idea of monoculture is a way to talk about many interconnected things at the same time – from agriculture and linguistics to ideology and officially sanctioned conceptions of culture. Monoculture gives a name to what Chantal Mouffe repeatedly referred to as the ‘forces of homogeneity’ at the ‘Considering Monoculture’ conference. In a societal sense, monoculture means cultural homogeneity, and it felt urgent to address and raise awareness of something that is increasingly prevalent.