"Questioning colonial heritage. Contemporary art and the challenges of memory."

Since the 1980s and the spread of postcolonial studies in the field of contemporary art, many artists have been questioning the link between the colonial past and the present. Alternately referred to as "historians" or "archivists", these visual artists draw on photographic archives, family stories, and archival documents to make or unmake history. This study day aims to question the relationship between artists and art historians, by setting up a series of dialogues around the practice of the participants and the social issues they address: the memory of colonization and independence, the role of public monuments in colonial and post-colonial history, the memory of bodies and representations in the history of painting, are just some of the themes that will be addressed.

Program

MORNING
9 am: Welcome of participants

9:30 am: Introduction Maureen Murphy (Professor of contemporary art history, Université Paris Nanterre) and Magali Ohouens (Ph.D. student in art history, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)

10:00 a.m.: The figures representation.
Dialogue between Anne Lafont (art historian, research director, EHESS) and Roméo Mivekannin (artist).

11:00 a.m.: Representing colonial memory.
Dialogue between Magali Ohouens (PhD student in art history, Paris 1) and Thibaut Bouedjoro-Camus (artist)

Midnight: Lunch break

AFTERNOON

2:00 pm: The statues question.
Dialogue between Bertrand Tillier (Professor of Contemporary History, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) and Katia Kameli (artist).

3:00 pm: Performing the memory of pan-African struggles in the 1960s and 1970s.
Dialogue between Nadine Atallah (Art historian and curator, EESAB Rennes and In Visu (CNRS/INHA)) and Yasmina Reggad (artist).

4 pm: Break

4:30 pm: Working with photographic archives.
Dialogue between Sandrine Colard (art historian, Rutgers School of Arts and Science- Newark, associate curator at Kanal - Pompidou) and Euridice Zeituna Kala (artist, teacher at Ecole des Beaux-arts de Nantes).

5:30 pm: Conclusion by Manuel Charpy (Historian, Director of the In Visu laboratory)

6 pm: Cocktail reception