The Bishop & The Doctor

The Bishop & The Doctor is a splitscreen projection of two synchronously presented events both taking place in the Asmat in the Indonesian province of Papua, former Dutch New Guinea, concerning the activities of two typical exponents of the White Man’s Burden. In the right part a German Doctor operates on a Papua in what almost looks like a home, in order to treat a lump in his face. The man in the left part, therefore, should logically be the bishop from the title of this work, but the meaning of the ceremony he performs remains unclear. As a result the spectator can focus on the actual course of events, without the need to fit them into a readymade story about ancient Papua rituals. The same is true for the course of the surgery, synchronously showing on the other screen. This is more important as an act in itself, rather than as some Stereotypical image of man from the West who would be performing good deeds. This makes the presence of the bishop and the doctor in a tropical coast swamp 4 degrees south of the equator perfectly self-evident.