Enzyklopädie der Insel Formosa. Ein Nachschlagewerk zu Politik, Gesellschaft und Natur

Ondine Pannet's Enzyklopädie der Insel Formosa (Encyclopaedia of the Island of Formosa) deals with motifs of the foreign, forms of exoticism and the critical question of the veracity of historiography. Her artist's book is a commentary on George Psalmanaazaar's fictional travelogues from the island of Formosa, which he presented in London in 1703. Pannet casts a new perspective on his imaginative remarks by detaching the travelogue from its original form of continuous text and transferring it to the scholarly medium of the encyclopaedia. She enhances the presentiveness of the scientific articles with numerous illustrations and tables, which she supplements with a vocabulary (Formosan – German) and colour photographs of botanical gardens, artificial oases and houseplants. Here, she draws on Psalmanaazaar's focus on Formosan as a language and a micrography, but develops it further, subtly putting the suggested scientific evidence in question again and again. In doing so, she plays with the fine line between authentic facts and fictional aspects, between which Psalmanaazaar already oscillated in his travelogues.

Exotismus und Fake News: Die erfundene Kultur von Formosa (Podcast)