THE END/FUTURE OF HISTORY
HODA AFSHAR, LARA CHAMAS, YU FANG CHI, KATAYOUN JAVAN, JAMES NGUYEN, SHA SAWARI, CYRUS TANG, AND TRUC TRUONG
Curated by PHUONG NGO
1 November - 14 December 2019
The SUBSTATION
In this exhibition curated by PHUONG NGO, contemporary artists examine how rights are simultaneously upheld and violated by government. In an international system that has been dominated by Western ideology, a fundamental flaw exists with the administering of rights. It is a system where the guarantor of rights is almost always the key violator. Can governments fulfil their obligations to citizens when presented with conflicting demands?
At the conclusion of the Cold War Francis Fukuyama produced his seminal work ‘The End of History’, arguing that we had reached the end point of ideological evolution; that the endpoint was liberal democracy. With hindsight we now know that Fukuyama and a great many of his supporters and detractors were wrong in their predictions as to the fate of our political futures. In 2012, Fukuyama revised his thesis in ‘The Future of History’ examining his original argument, looking at the possible ideological contenders to Liberal Democracy. This exhibition explores the Fukuyama’s ideas on liberal democracies, their flaws and contradictions.
Co-presented with The SUBSTATION as part of DUE WEST FESTIVAL
