Category Archives: Shared History / Decolonising the Image

Be[coming] Dutch – Eindhoven Caucus

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From 9 November until 6 December 2007 , Eindhoven Caucus at the Van Abbemuseum.

The Eindhoven Caucus started from the principle that art proceeds from a discursive and critical culture. It seeked, in the context of art educational practices, to stimulate and transform. Thinkers and artists from all over the world came to Eindhoven to inspire the future, and acted as interlocutors for a group of local people and international students. Contributors included a broad range of critical theorists such as Rosi Braidotti, Homi K. Bhabha, Galit Eilat, Boris Groys, Chantal Mouffe, Nikos Papastergiadis, Paul Scheffer, Shepherd Steiner, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Gerald Raunig and inspiring artists writers and cultural producers such as Yael Bartana, Abdelkader Benali, Igor Dobričić, Tone Olaf Neilsen, Sarah Pierce, Bik Van der Pol, Renee Ridgway, Artur Žmijewski, Phil Collins, Agung Kurniawan and many others.

Be[com]ing Dutch aims to open up an exploratory debate which puts our ideas of national identity at risk and examines and challenges the processes of inclusion and exclusion today. As questions of cultural identity and normative ‘national’ values become ever more of an issue in political and cultural debate, the concept behind Be[com]ing Dutch is to move the agenda on from notions of toleration and difference towards building a shared but agonistic democracy on the cultural level through the use of one of the few remaining public sphere institutions left to us – the museum. The Eindhoven Caucus attempted to look at the meaning of and context for a global visual culture right here (Eindhoven) and right now (2006-8). The four week intensive meeting offered a programme comprising of a lecture series, publications, screenings, performances, collective production, radio programmes, workshops and other activities.

Central paradoxes of the CAUCUS included:

  • The revival of nationalism versus the reality of globalisation and migration. How can art imagine a way out of this dichotomy?
  • The re-emergence of religion as the dominant cultural identifier versus the secular globalisation of capital.
  • How can art imagine identity differently today?
  • The autonomy of art versus its use (critically, economically and socially)
  • How can a museum effect change in a provincial city (Eindhoven).
  • Can art change politics, does politics determine art?

    • Be[com]ing Dutch
    PO Box 235
    NL-5600 AE Eindhoven
    tel. +31 (0)40 238 10 36

Lecture: X-Change. Investigating the exchange of ideas, concepts and materials between art, academia and audiences

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Friday 25 May, 2 pm – 4 pm/4.30 pm
Round Table Conversation in the context of the manifestation and exhibition ‘The Return of the Shreds’ of Ni Haifeng and Kitty Zijlmans.

X-Change
Investigating the exchange of ideas, concepts and materials between art, academia and audiences.

The Return of the Shreds covers a wide range of projects and installations, such as the title project in which 9 tons of textile shreds are displayed in the largest room of Scheltema; a re-installation of Of the Departure and the Arrival (2005) in which every day objects were made into blue & white porcelain objects in China, and send back to the Netherlands; Shrinkage 10% questioning original and copy in a diminishing series of porcelain objects, and the Used Passports project asking people to hand in their invalid passport [a part of their past identity] and as such partaking in the project by being involved.

X-change is the main topic of the Round Table Conversation: exchanges and the subsequent changes in the processes of trade, between nations, cultures, concepts of art, and between art and scholarly fields/the sciences. Exchanges are rarely equal, mostly inequality is involved, power relations, rich and poor, etc, especially now in a globalizing world. These questions are underlying our project.

Participants:
Kitty Zijlmans (Art Historian, Chair)
Ni Haifeng (artist)
Roel Arkesteijn (curator)
Delphine Bedel (artist, curator)
Jessica de Boer (MA Governance & Sustainability)
Lene ter Haar (curator Museum Het Domein)
Francesca Dal Lago (Research Fellow Universiteit Leiden Contemporary Chinese Art)
Paola van de Velde (art critic)
Janneke Wesseling (lector KABK)

Research MA students Art History University of Leiden:
Thanavi Chotpradit, Margriet Krijgsman, Flora Lysen, Iberia Perez, Jianwei Wang

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Close Connections

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Close Connections zal elke avond van 8 t/m 11 mei het voorprogramma van het Tijdelijke Museum in de Balie organiseren. Voorafgaand aan de debatten zullen internationale curatoren presentaties en lezingen geven over verschillende verrassende initiatieven en instituten uit het buitenland. Op Woensdag 9 mei zal Close Connections, in samenwerking met het SMBA,  een filmavond organiseren voor het aanwezige publiek in de Balie. Enkele curatoren zullen aan de hand van meegebrachte films een beeld proberen te schetsen van de hedendaagse kunstwereld in het land van herkomst.

Teaching & Lectures: The Hybrid Muse And The So Called Autonomy Of The Arts

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Spring 2007. Lectures Series and Seminar A World of Nearness
Studium Generale / Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

The Hybrid Muse And The So Called Autonomy Of The Arts

The idea that art should be pure, free and ‘autonomous’ is precious to many artists and art lovers all over the world, but it seems to be especially dear (and sometimes even sacred) to the Dutch art world. Last November we invited theorists to introduce the concept of post coloniality to the Rietveld community. We then learned that Modernism is based upon an outspoken Euro centric perception of the world. Autonomy is often used to defend Modernism as the last bastion of Enlightenment. But in post modern and post colonial times artists are challenged to cement new alliances with the world. Globalisation urges artists to rethink their role and position. Of course it is dangerous to give up every notion of autonomy. It would be much better – as van Abbemuseum director Charles Esche has been passionately pleading at many occasions – to develop an attitude of “engaged autonomy”. In this lecture series we will meet with artists, researchers and curators who are energetically involved in doing so. With their projects they contest conservative hierarchies in the evaluation of the arts. Continuously stretching and crossing the borders of traditional domains of art and history they introduce us to a hybrid muse. The muse of a world of nearness.

Seminars and lectures will be moderated by Delphine Bedel, a visual artist and free-lance curator based in Amsterdam. She is currently teaching at the Rietveld Academie. Among her recent curatorial projects are the exhibition and Video Lounge ‘Shared History /Decolonising the Image’ (with S. Berrebi) in Amsterdam.

07/02
Tion Ang: Belonging And Alienation
14/02
Marianne Brouwer: Global Feminism And The Avant Garde
21/02
Frederikke Hansen: Rethinking Nordic Colonialism. A Postcolonial Exhibition Project In Five Acts
07/03
Annie Fletcher: Be(com)ing Dutch In The Age Of Global Democracy
14/03
Kitty Zijlmans: Windows On The World: Contemporary Art Exhibitions As ‘Exploratory Operations’. The Case Of Ni Haifeng
21/03
Kodwo Eshun: The Ghosts Of Songs

Teaching & Lectures: Decolonising The Image

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Autumn 2006. Lectures Series and Seminar A World of Nearness
Studium Generale / Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

Decolonising The Image

How is decolonisation (process by which colonies and the colonizing country ‘divorce’) represented through images, in popular culture, film, photography and art? Where are the images of decolonisation? What is the legacy of those images in our culture? What does it mean to ‘decolonise’ an image? These are some of the questions that the wonderful project ‘Shared History/Decolonising the Image’ was seeking to raise and put forward for discussion.

International and interdisciplinary in its scope, it consisted of four parts; an academic conference, a film programme, an art exhibition and a video lounge, presented in four different venues from W139, Arti and Maison Descartes to the University of Amsterdam from 6 May to 4 June 2006. We are delighted that the conference organisers Sophie Berrebi and Julia Noordegraaf, responded so enthusiastically to our request for a ‘revival’ of 6 highlight lectures from their programme, this time in the context of World of Nearness and specifically adressing young artists at the Rietveld Academie.

This selection of 6 lectures from the conference Shared History/Decolonising the Image takes a look at the images (photographs, documentaries, films) that have shaped the general imagination of decolonisation, in particular in Algeria and France and in Indonesia and the Netherlands. While there are many publications that investigate the role of literature in these processes, little is known about the role of images. Various topics can be addressed: What is the specific role of the image? Who ‘speaks’ through it? How can images be (re)appropriated? What do we talk about when we say ‘images or representations of decolonisation’?

Decolonising the Image and its corresponding seminar will be moderated by Delphine Bedel, who together with Sophie Berrebi curated the Shared History / Decolonising the Image exhibition. Delphine Bedel is an artist and curator who also teaches at the Rietveld Academie.

Launch 18/10/2006
Delphine Bedel: Shared History / Decolonising the Image

Seminar and Lectures ‘Decolonising the Image’ 06/11-13/12/2006
01/11
Emmanuelle Radar: Ceci n’est pas une petite tonkinoise. On ‘decolonising’ Josephine Baker
08/11
John Kleinen: Framing Decolonization. A Review Of French And Vietnamese Cinema Of The First Indochina War
15/11
Pamela Pattynama: [Post]Colonial Memories And Decolonisation In Dutch Cinema
22/11
Patricia Pisters: The Battle Of Algiers And Other Perspectives On The Algerian Independence War
29/11
Lizzy van Leeuwen: Imagery Of The ‘Indies Girl’ As A Blind Spot Of Decolonization
06/12
Désirée Schyns: The Hidden Algerian Independence War In Michael Haneke’s ‘Caché’

International Conference: Shared History / Decolonising the Image:

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International Conference ‘Shared History / Decolonising the Image’
University of Amsterdam, 1-2-3 June 2006

Conference Programme:

Tursday 1 June 2006
IMAGES OF DECOLONISATION

10.40 Welcome address and introduction: Sophie Berrebi and Julia Noordegraaf, conference organisers.
11.00 Opening address: Ieme van der Poel (UvA): Spectres of Decolonisation: From the Dutch East Indies to Algeria and beyond.
11.30 – 13.00 Panel 1: Images of War
Patricia Pisters (UvA): The Battle of Algiers and other Perspectives on the Algerian Independence War.
John Kleinen (UvA): Framing Decolonization. A Review of French and Vietnamese cinema of the 1st Indochina War.
14.30 16.30 Panel 2: The Legacy of Decolonisation and its Images
Pamela Pattynama (UvA): (Post)Colonial Memories in Dutch Cinema.
Désirée Schyns (Hogeschool Gent, UvA): The hidden Algerian War in Michael Haneke’s Caché (Hidden).
Mireille Rosello (UvA): Putting oneself in the Picture. Empire and chaotic Gazing.
17.00 – 18.00 Artist’s Presentation: Discussion between filmmakers Malek Bensmail and Karim Traïdia and producer Rocky Tuhuteru.
20.00 Screening in the presence of the directors:
‘Verdrietig is verleden tijd’ [Sadness is in the past] by Karim Traïdia (2005) and ‘Alienations’ by Malek Bensmail (2004)

Friday 2 June 2006
DECOLONISING THE IMAGE

9.30 – 11.00 Panel 3: Decolonising the Colonial Fantasy
Emmanuelle Radar (UvA): ‘Ceci n’est pas une petite tonkinoise’. On ‘decolonising’ Joséphine Baker.
Nicolas Bancel (Université Strasbourg II-Marc Bloch): The Colonial Maelstrom.
11.30 – 13.00 Panel 4 Decolonising Films
Elizabeth Ezra (University of Stirling, Scotland): Cutting off the Colonial Past. Historical Trauma in the Films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Guido Convents (SIGNIS, co-coordinator / director of the Belgian African Film Festival) [Speaker to be confirmed].
14.30 – 16.00 Panel 5: Iconographies and the making of Colonial History
(Organised by Marga Altena, Visual Culture Study Group of the Huizinga Institute).
Lizzy van Leeuwen (Meertens Institute in Amsterdam): Seduction Interrupted. The ‘Indies Girl’ and Images of Decolonization.
Frances Gouda (UvA): Deploying Photography. Representations of Indonesian Elites, Nationalism, and Visions of Independence, 1900-1949.
16.30 – 17.30 Artist’s Presentation: Martine Derain

From 20.30 Visit to the exhibition Shared History/Decolonising the Image at Arti & Amicitiae in the presence of the artists and the curators. Performance by Otobong Nkanga.

Saturday 3 June
NEW IMAGES, NEW IDENTITIES

9.30 – 11.00 Panel 6: Contemporary Film
Katinka van Heeren (Leiden University): Film genres. Shifts in Indonesian Imaginations and Representations of Colonization.
Ratiba Hadj-Moussa (York University, Toronto) Centrality and Marginality in Contemporary Algerian Films.
11.30 – 13.00 Panel 7: Visualizing Processes of Decolonisation in Museums
Françoise Vergès (Goldsmiths, London) [title to be announced]
Janneke van Dijk (Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam) Eastward Bound. An Exhibition on Dutch Colonialism in a postcolonial Time.
14.30 – 16.00 Panel 8: Postcolonial Identity and the Urban Environment
Abidin Kusno (University of British Columbia, Vancouver): Colonial Cities in Motion. Visual Environment and Popular Radicalism.
Michelle Provoost (Crimson, Rotterdam): New Towns in the Developing World. Emancipation Machines between Nation building and Cold War Politics.
16.00 – 16.30 closing remarks

16.30 – 18.00 Visit to the exhibition Shared History/Decolonising the Image at W139 Post CS.
Presentation of the exhibition by the curators, Delphine Bedel and Sophie Berrebi.