For the sixth time, a productive cooperation between the Biennale and the V&A sponsored a special project at the The Pavilion of Applied Arts, housed in the Sale d’Armi at Arsenale. Biennale curator Cecilia Alemani chose Sophia Al-Maria, a Qatari-American author and director who authored a video titled Tiger Strike Red. Al-Maria’s work is the third of a series that includes Beast Type Song (2019) and Tender Point Ruin (2021). Taking inspiration from a collection of robots at the V&A, the artists was fascinated with the peculiar eroticism of the Tipu’s Tiger, a mechanical sculpture created in the eighteenth century for Sultan Fateh Ali Tipu, a governor in Southern India. The tiger is shown mauling a British soldier. According to Al-Maria, the machine-sculpture shows the revenge sentiment against the colonizer and the subconscious fantasy of a sexual act, alluded to by the man/beast pair.
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