Neocolonialism or not neocolonialism?

Anna Balint Puskas

Babinga woman performing Yeli

The drawings for the Top 100 2020 are evolving into illustrations for songs with multiple images. Most of the music in the list are sourced from well documented anthropological recordings. Data, photos, and contextual information is available for many of the recordings. The amount of text in these drawings is also increasing and the attitude towards the drawings is closer to the drawings for the top 100 I did in the beginning in the early 1990s. I do like the juxtaposition of drawings of the performer and the recorder, who is in many cases a Frenchman. This idea I intend to explore further in the works for the next series that I'm going to start soon. For the Top 100 2021 I intend to use oil paint on 11 x 14 inch canvases, horizontally oriented and containing double portraits. I think it will be interesting to portray the musicians from all parts of the world, mostly women, next to a portrait of the ethnomusicologist who is mostly a white middle-aged European. These are not intended to become criticism for an attitude resembling neocolonialism but rather an honest juxtaposition of subject and object. Both as individuals.