The “Map of the Absentees”: Cartography, Memory, History of post-revolutionary Iran

Maps are like icons showing, on a small scale, how space is organized and shared inside the urban frame. If they are always involved in the processes of power, and they are the tool of the dominant group and symbolically strengthens its authority, they are also the tool of representation of space. They provide a visual material base to the narratives and to the discourses related to the space. Therefore maps allow artists to intervene, which means, to investigate differently on space, to represent and to bear witness to the unseen which can then get a precarious visibility.

The Map of the Absentees (http://www.mapoftheabsentees.net), gathered narrations of fifteen political Iranian refugees whose exile originated in the political destruction that occurred in Iran between 1979 and 1988. They are the ones who have usually been absent from the historical narrative of post-revolutionary Iran. The website of the Map of the Absentees is the transposition of a sound cartographic installation by Bahar Majdzadeh. The launch of this website will offer the opportunity to talk about the state strategies of the 1980s in Iran with Chowra Makaremi and then to discuss the appropriation of the map in the works of artists with Karen O'rourke.

Program:
17:00: Introduction: Parand Danesh, EHESS, Chair
17:10: Karen O’Rourke, University Jean Monnet of Saint-Etienne: "Oral Histories: Mapping Other Voices"
17:30: Bahar Majdzadeh, Aix-Marseille University: "The Map of the Absentees"
17:50: Michael Falk, Heurist, The University of Sydney: " Digital Humanities-Heurist Network"
18:00: Chowra Makaremi, CNRS, IRIS: "Counter-archives and archeologies of violence"
18:20: Questions & Discussion

Please join our webinar on Wednesday 22 June at 5 pm CEST through this link:
https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/97071881055?pwd=TlBRNnVWd0NuSCt0RjREZGs2dm1hUT09

Meeting ID: 970 7188 1055
Password: JP3SvF

Workshop organized as part of Off-Site project: https://offsite.hypotheses.org/