In the Shadows of Paradise

CIFRA presents In the Shadows of Paradise, an online exhibition of video works produced over the past three decades, curated by David Elliott @davidelliott846.

Bringing together artists and collectives from Africa, China, Europe, Japan, Russia and Singapore, the exhibition explores how ideas of paradise intersect with political power, social change, memory, environmental transformation and individual freedom.

In the Shadows of Paradise forms part of an ongoing series of CIFRA exhibitions examining how artists anticipate, interpret and respond to changing environments and structures of power. Conceived as an evolving project, the exhibition will continue to develop over time.

The project builds on an idea first explored by Elliott at Troy House in London in 2022, through a smaller presentation devoted exclusively to video works from China. The exhibition presented by CIFRA expands this framework internationally and across a broader historical period.

At its centre is the contradiction contained within the idea of paradise itself. Political ideologies, religions and other structures of power have repeatedly used visions of an ideal future alongside strategies of attraction, fear, belief, compliance and submission. Taken to extremes, such frameworks can leave little space for individual speculation, disagreement or alternative ways of imagining the future.

In the Shadows of Paradise proposes a different model. Here, the shadows become a space in which artists can question established structures, imagine alternatives and examine the tensions between desire, pleasure, abjection and fear. Paradise becomes less a fixed destination than a relative and aspirational idea through which individual experience can be considered in relation to collective survival.

About David Elliott

David Elliott is a curator, writer, lecturer and cultural historian with more than four decades of experience in modern and contemporary art. He has directed major institutions across Europe and Asia, including the Museum of Modern Art Oxford, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo as its founding director, and Istanbul Modern as its first director. From 2015 to 2019, he was Senior Curator and Vice Director of the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art.

Elliott has served as artistic director and curator of international biennales and major exhibitions, including the 17th Biennale of Sydney, the first Kyiv Biennale, the 4th Moscow Biennale for Young Art and the 56th Belgrade October Salon. He has also held visiting academic positions across Europe and Asia and continues to write, lecture and advise cultural institutions internationally.

About CIFRA

CIFRA is a curatorial media art platform dedicated to the presentation, documentation and long-term visibility of media art. It connects artists, galleries, curators, institutions, spaces, collectors and audiences through works presented within curatorial and institutional contexts.

CIFRA creates an environment in which media art can remain visible and contextualised beyond the conventional exhibition cycle, supporting its continued presence across digital, cultural and commercial spaces.

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