Kobarweng or Where Is Your Helicopter? stems from Johan Grimonprez’s visit to Papua New Guinea in 1986. Upon arrival in the village of Pepera, a local villager asked him, “Where is your helicopter?” Grimonprez later learned that a group of anthropologists had come to the village by helicopter in 1959, an event that left a lasting impression on the Indigenous people.

Grimonprez’s video installation deconstructs anthropological discourse by exploring the confrontation between a group of Western scientists and the original inhabitants of the New Guinea highlands. The scientists that descended by helicopter, much to the shock and dismay of the population, instantly turned the worldview of the natives upside down.

The overarching theme of the work is anthropology itself, examining the role of the observer and the observed, as well as the symbols that define cultural differences. Central to Kobarweng is the notion of “the Other” as constructed within a social and historical context when two cultures collide. Grimonprez links the original documentary material to fragments of oral tradition by the Indigenous population today.