Echoes of Empire: contemporary art and colonial history
Organized by Elvan Zabunyan, Marine Schütz, Meghna Singh and Marlène Meslay

In many European and African cities, artists, activists and heritage practitioners have been trying to come to term with the controversies raised by the memory and trauma of colonial and slave trade histories. As witnessed by the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol in the summer of 2020, in the wake of Black Lives Matter, the signs of a contested past expressing nationalist and violent narrative of identity have been increasingly contested. Eliciting a profund reticence on the part of minority artists, activists and curator, colonial traces have become points of mobilization to investigate ways to decolonize the monuments, urban spaces as well as memory. May they active within museums or associations, acting in collective or individual ways, contemporary artists and activists use the colonial traces – the objects, the sites, the monuments - in order to reinterpret the former cultural asymmetric relations between metropole and colony. What is the role of the artists and curators in the rewriting of these national and conflicting memories? To what extent can dissonant heritage be reframed in collective terms? What are relations set by the interventions of artists around commemorative practices between the past and the present?

This online panel takes place within the European research project ECHOES (http://projectechoes.eu/), funded by the european programme Horizon 2020. It gathers artists, curators, activists and art historians based in Bristol, Cape Town and Marseille who seek to question in their practices the legacies of this past in urban space. The event will consist in presentations and discussions with the audience in the three cities in order to confront the feelings and the reactions across this transnational space.

SPEAKERS
Michael Jenkins is a director/producer, 8th Sense Media/ Blak Wave based in Bristol.

Monique Kerman is the associate professor of African art history and visual culture at Western Washington University in Bellingham.
Mohammed Laouli is an artist based in Marseille.
Dalila Mahdjoub is an artist based in Marseille.
Sikumbuzo Makandula is a visual artist & Heritage consultant based in Capetown.

Khanyisile Mbongwa a curator based in Capetown.

Stacey Olika is a digital designer, creative diversity coordinator at Channel 4 based in Bristol.
Thania Petersen an artist based in Capetown.
Christelle Pellecuer is the founder and creative director at Razana Afrika, makeup artist (for fashion, film and TV), and writer and performer based in Bristol.
Thania Petersen is an artist based in Capetown.
Marine Schütz is a researcher in contemporary art history, University Rennes 2 based in Marseille.
Meghna Singh an artist and researcher based in Capetown.
Elvan Zabunyan is the professor of contemporary art history, University Rennes 2 based in Paris.

PARTICIPATION
Free participation with mandatory registration
https://echoesofempire.sciencesconf.org/registration
SIMULTANEOUS TRANSLATION
The conference will be available in English and French via a simultaneous translation service.
CONTACT
marlene.meslayuniv-rennes2.fr and schutzmarinegmail.com

Program
27 and 28 May 2021, online, UTC+2

May 27, 2021 - Parallel workshops: contemporary art and colonial history in Bristol, Capetown and Marseille

2:00 pm to 2:15 pm Opening by Elvan Zabunyan

2:15 pm to 2:45 pm Moderation by Marine Schütz
Christelle Pellecuer and Michael Jenkins, projection of Echoes of our ancestors, video HD, 2021.
2:45 pm to 3:00 pm Questions

3:00 pm to 3:30 pm Moderation by Marine Schütz
Meghna Singh, Images/trailer of Container:Witness the ‘invisiblized’, art installation VR180 3D project, 2021.
3:30 pm to 3:45 pm Questions

3:45 pm to 4:15 pm Moderation by Marine Schütz
Mohammed Laouli, Les Sculptures n’étaient pas blanches, video, 2021.
4:15 pm to 4:30 pm Questions

May 28, 2021 : Contemporary art and the colonial past: panel discussions

1:45 pm to 2:00 pm Opening by Elvan Zabunyan

2:00 pm to 2:45 pm Panel on Bristol, moderation by Elvan Zabunyan
Stacey Olika, Untitled.
Marine Schütz, Representation and ethnicity in Bristol after the toppling of Colston’s statue.

2:45 pm to 3:55 pm Panel on Cape Town, moderation by Meghna Singh
Sikumbuzo Makandula, Zizimase.
Khanyisile Mbongwa, Geographies of Collaboration for Radical Black Imagination.
Thania Petersen, KASSARAM - Orientalising Africa.

3:55 pm to 4:05 pm Break

4:05 pm to 4:50 pm Panel on Marseille, moderation by Marine Schütz
Dalila Mahdjoub, Mes archives du sol.
Monique Kerman, Quest(ion)ing French Universalism in the Art of Moussa Sarr, Dalila Mahdjoub, and Sara Sadik.

4h50 pm to 5:00 pm Elvan Zabunyan, Marine Schütz and Meghna Singh