In Search of Archives
Contemporary Approaches
to the Past
Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin-Wedding
Organized with Nadia Sabri & Sarah Dornhof
In Search of Archives inquires into contemporary notions and practices of the archive in postcolonial constellations. While the state of archives in former colonial settings is continuously marked by limited access, dispersed documents and repressed histories, contemporary art and research have been opening various ways of appropriating, (re)collecting and rendering visible the diverse traces and memories, creating new meanings of the past for the present and the future. The project aims to create a platform for discussing contemporary politics, potentials and transformations of postcolonial archives, and to open an exchange between different academic and artistic research practices and approaches. The archive, in its material, metaphorical and imaginary dimensions thus becomes a space for questioning historical narratives and persisting absences as well for developing new forms of knowledge, connection and creation.
Programme
Conference languages are French, English and German, with simultaneous translation.
Wednesday, January 23
Venue: Kuppelhalle, Silent Green
16:00 Welcome
16:30 – 17:00
Nadia Sabri (Rabat) & Sarah Dornhof (Konstanz/Berlin)
Welcome & Introduction: In Search of Archives
17:00 – 19:30
KEYNOTES
Rita El Khayat (Casablanca)
Les archives comme structure de la pensée et de la création actuelles, à travers les traces et palimpsestes du passé
Avery Gordon (Santa Barbara)
We will have been living otherwise: archiving in the future perfect tense
20:00
VERNISSAGE of the Exhibition
Venue: Atelier 1+2, Silent Green
Thursday, January 24
Venue: Kuppelhalle, Silent Green
Absences, Traces, and the Art of Memory
10:00 – 12:00
Bärbel Küster (Zürich)
Loose Ends of Archives. On Not-Knowing
Katarzyna Pieprzak (Williamstown)
Planned Absence and the Art of Memory
Cynthia Becker (Boston)
Between Visibility and Invisibility: Black Women and the Moroccan Archive
13:30 – 14:45
Brahim El Guabli (Williamstown)
From Silence to Other-Archives: Literature as Other-Archive in Post-1999 Morocco
Carol Solomon (Cambridge, MA)
Recuperating the Past: Memory, Postmemory, and the Visual Archive in the Works of Wiame Haddad
15:00 – 16:30
Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (Cambridge / Casablanca)
KHOYA sound archive : Jewish sounds, voices, memories in creative uses
Jean Lévy (Berlin)
Une initiation pour la préservation de la mémoire : l’Association des amis du Musée du Judaïsme marocain
Nadia Sabri (Rabat)
Exils, paradigme fertile : une conversation avec la collection du Musée du Judaïsme marocain
Film Memories
Film Projections, Presentations, and Discussions
17:00 – 19:00
Brigitta Kuster (Berlin)
Cinéma sujet – Zum post- und antikolonialen Filmschaffen von Mohamed Osfour
Léa Morin (Casablanca)
Reconstituer « De quelques évènements sans signification »
Film (extracts): « De quelques évènements sans signification »
(Mostafa Derkaoui, 1974)
20:00 – 22:00
Ali Essafi (Casablanca)
Art & Essais pour un archivage de l’oubli
Films (extracts): « Wanted » et « Halaqat Nord-Africaines » (Ali Essafi, 2003-present)
Touda Bouanani (Rabat)
Préservation, partage et dialogue avec l’archive (les archives de Ahmed Bouanani)
Film: « Fragments de mémoire » (Touda Bouanani, 2014)
Friday, January 25
Venue: Atelier 2, Silent Green
9:30 – 10:00 Welcome
The State and the Art of Archives
10:00 – 11:15
Bettina Dennerlein (Zürich)
Citizenship and the Politics of Archive in Morocco
Sumayya Ahmed (Doha)
To the Nation, Belong the Archives:
Nationalist Archival imagination and Contemporary Contests for Morocco’s Documentary Heritage
11:30 – 12:45
Anahi Alviso-Marino (Paris)
The state and the artist in Kuwait. Khalifa Qattan’s personal archives
Tina Barouti (Boston)
Constructing the Archive: Fieldwork at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tétouan
Archival Matter, Archival Practices
14:00 – 16:00
Kerstin Pinther (München)
Relevant Clothing: Cultural Heritage and Archival Practices in Contemporary Fashion Design in West Africa
Verena Rodatus (Berlin)
Towards a Digital Archive on Contemporary Art in Benin: Reflections on a Film-Based Oral Art History
Nadine Siegert (Bayreuth)
Collectivize (Re)Sources:
The Estate of Ulli Beier
16:30 – 18:30
Exhibition Talks “Absent Histories”
M’Barek Bouhchichi (Tahanaout)
Wiame Haddad (Paris)
Ulrike Weiss (Freiburg)
Malik Nejmi (Orlean)
19:00 – 20:00
KEYNOTE
Anthony Downey (Birmingham)
Applied Futures: Digital Archives in a “Post Truth” Age
Saturday January 26
Venue: Atelier 2, Silent Green
10:00 – 11:00
KEYNOTE
Knut Ebeling (Berlin)
(Colonial) Archives and the Question of Provenance
Collections, Art Spaces and the Construction of Archives
11:15 – 13:00
Kirsten Scheid (Beirut)
Nearly by Chance: An anthropological approach to archives
suspended between becoming and accomplishment
Maud Houssais (Rabat)
Les archives de l’Atelier: sur les routes des modernités nomades
14:00 – 15:15
Michela Alessandrini (Bordeaux / Doha)
The archives of L’Appartement 22 in Rabat: a tale about the proactive entanglement between personal and (non)institutional curatorial archives
Léa Morin (Casablanca)
Pour un Musée Collectif de Casablanca : exploration des mémoires et marges urbaines dans un processus d’écriture partagé de l’histoire de la ville par ses habitants
15:30 – 17:30
Exibition Talks “Artistic Imaginaries and Counter-Representation”
Randa Maroufi (Paris)
Mohamed Arejdal (Taroudant)
Mohssin Harraki (Paris)
Sara Ouhaddou (Paris)
Yassine Balbzioui (Marrakech)
18:00 – 19:30
Final Round Table
“Curating the Archive, A ‘History of the Future’”
Hassan Darsi (Casablanca)
Elisabeth Piskernik (Rabat)
Abdellah Karroum (Rabat / Doha)