Spotlight: Roy Villevoye, Refashion, 1999
Each week, we highlight one intervention from our exhibition The Collection Resists.
In this work, Roy Villevoye shows how T-shirts from Europe have been transformed by the Asmat people of West Papua into carriers of their own stories. By altering the clothing with cuts and tears, the shirts take on new symbolism and show that the Asmat do not simply adopt European objects, but give them their own meaning.
The work reverses the museum's colonial collecting practices.Whereas the collection of the Missiemusem was presented to support the missionary narrative of a hundred years ago, Refashion shows how the Asmat integrate European material into their own culture.
Discover this work for yourself in our museum, on display until 1 March 2026.
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