Paris ‘Whistleblower’ Exhibition Recreates Julian Assange’s Living Quarters At The Ecuadorian Embassy
The Gaité Lyrique is currently staging a new exhibition in Paris called Whistleblower, and in it you are able to see Julian Assange’s living quarters at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been living for nearly five years.
The Whistleblower artwork will be exhibited from January 11 to 29 and was the creation of a Swiss art collective known as Mediengruppe Bitnik. The artists involved in this project have managed to reproduce the room that Julian Assange lives in at the Ecuadorian Embassy even down to the smallest detail, as Sputnik News report.
En ce moment à la @gaitelyrique on peut découvrir la chambre de @JulianAssange_ et appeler des espions #lanceursdalerte pic.twitter.com/5Xe0B2OUho
— Laurent Bigarella (@iamlaurentb) January 13, 2017
In the Julian Assange Whistleblower exhibition at the Gaité Lyrique, you can spy a dozen cell phones, a treadmill, a few cups of tea, the Mask of the Anonymous group, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and a myriad of different folders with titles like “Banking Blockade” and “Intelligence Iraq.” And to make things even more realistic, the wi-fi signal has been made to think it is in London when it is connected.
The exhibition curator, Marie Lechner, has described the goal of Whistleblower as being one that allows visitors “to feel the contrast between the strict supervision within the walls of the Embassy, and the 20 square meters where the activities of WikiLeaks continue to be felt.”
Dans la chambre de Julian Assange… @gaitelyrique#lanceursdalertepic.twitter.com/ZOorPOzhGv
— Claire Fabre (@FabreClaire) January 11, 2017
Marie Lechner also noted that she hoped after attending the exhibition, viewers would think about whistleblowers and “the reasons they exist in our society.” The Swiss art collective were able to reproduce Julian Assange’s living quarters at the Equadorian Embassy in London because of their 2013 Delivery for Mr Assange project. For that project, they posted a package for Assange and sent it off to London.
The package for Julian Assange that was delivered to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London contained a camera which tracked and documented the parcel’s entire journey through a small hole in the package. There were several thousand users on Twitter who were anxiously tracking the progress of this package as well, and on January 17, 2013, just 32 hours later, the package with camera was delivered to Julian at the Ecuadorian Embassy.
The Gaité Lyrique website for the Julian Assange Whistleblower exhibition gives an exotic interpretation of the art involved in the project.
“Enter Julian Assange’s room, call the secret services, dance all night long on the electronic rythms of the women DJ who emerged after the Arabic Springs: from January 11th to the 29th, La Gaîté Lyrique gives a place to speak to our modern heroes, the whistleblowers.”
The museum further describes the role of whistleblowers in society today and how they are straddling a fine line between following and respecting the rule of law whilst seeking to enlighten and inform the public on a large number of issues which are crucial to the survival of society.
“Heroes or ordinary citizens, the whistleblowers reveal data manipulation, drifts of mass surveillance and appropriations of the common good. They bring back to life the archaic dilemma: the tension between free will and obedience, between respecting the law and the right to transgression. They open a breach in our representations of the world. Anchored in the emergency of reality, they explore the fiction of another possible world. This first festival is dedicated to the exceptionally contemporary figure of the whistleblowers, seen through art and new technologies.”
Have you seen the Julian Assange Whistleblower exhibition at the Gaité Lyrique and, if so, what did you think of it?
[Featured Image by Carl Court/Getty Images]
