Restitution and Return

The discussion raises contemporary questions of restitution of cultural property taken during periods of colonial expansion. Curator Sean Anderson discusses the challenges of the repatriation of monuments and the protocols of repair; artist Kader Attia explores models of repair that do not aspire to erase the inherent injury but rather embody new forms of resistance; and professor of philosophy Souleymane Bachir Diagne addresses the translation of objects from objects of ethnographic curiosity to artworks and how a material return can occasion resocialization and transformation.

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Documenting Migration in Contemporary Art: Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project

How to raise awareness of the most recent refugee crisis in the Mediterranean in a way that does not spectacularize human suffering? Beginning with Bouchra Khalili’sThe Mapping Journey Project, this essay addresses how the present crisis has manifested as image and has made its way, across a variety of methodological and ethical approaches, into works of…

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Safi Faye: Selbé et tant d’autres

Artist and author Nene Aissatou Diallo revisits Safi Faye’s 1982 portrayal of Selbé, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of eight from Fad’jal as she and her compatriots go about their daily routines, carried by song. This feature reflects on the visual portrayal of Selbé, and Faye’s use of the camera in a documentary produced as part of the series As Women See It.