Stereotypical images of foreigners are constructs. They distort, simplify, and manipulate reality. Most of the time we are not conscious that these stereotypes are a means to hiding our own conflicting emotions and attitudes toward foreign beings. If we want to escape from reality, we romanticize and idealize them. If we believe that they are coming too close or even becoming dangerous, we stigmatize or demonize them.

McMaster: "The idea was to bring visitors' attention (consciousness) to the very idea of stereotype through a participatory process of bringing something they have in their own collections, or something they've seen in stores or elsewhere. By this act, it would seem, they're becoming aware of the issue. Though, we as human beings can never [get] rid of stereotypes, we can at the very least question their validity, the relation between self and other, or even the role of commodification, the market, and the consumer."


Gerald McMaster (Plains Cree) Cultural Amnesty - Stereotypes Hurt 1992-1999, installation reproduced for the exhibition; Plexiglas, wood, diverse objects Ottawa, Gerald McMaster
We have selected five stereotypes typical of our western tradition: For Europeans, the epitome of a foreign being is a Black person; we still see the "redskin" as a literary figure, the protagonist of novels and films; we imagine the "yellow" Oriental as part of a mass of humanity without being able to perceive him or her as an individual; the Gypsy stands for a lifestyle that does not fit with our bourgeois norms; and while the Jew is usually not visibly different from ourselves, we have spent much effort trying to construct him as a foreign being.