Introduction
Simon Fujiwara de-constructs the wistful human desire that underpins tourist attractions, historical icons, celebrities, “edutainment,” and neo-capitalism. In this seductive, if no less fraught arena, his work reveals the paradox of our simultaneous quest for fantasy and authenticity in the culture we consume.
Hope House is an ongoing exhibition model built upon years of rigorous study into the legacy of Anne Frank (1929-1945). Since 2017 Fujiwara has been erecting life-scale replicas of the Anne Frank House’s “build-you-own” model as exhibition architecture to present artifacts collected and analyzed from a diary-like perspective. The original model presented here was authorized by the Anne Frank House and sold in the museum shop, where Fujiwara first encountered it in 2017.