Artists’ archives and the sites of memory in Cairo and Algiers

Abstract

There are numerous examples in Africa and beyond of artistic explorations of hidden, neglected or marginalized (photographic) archives and histories. This is the case with Lara Baladi and Egypt-born artist Hala Elkoussy, as well as Zineb Sedira's Gardiennes d'images. The three artists interact with different photographic and image archives and collections in order to reassess official historical narrations, to question their very specific modes of representation or to reflect the status of memory in the digital age. In doing so, they all approach the various forms of individual and collective memories, facts and fiction and the (physical) place for memory. As with the works of so many artists, be they from Africa or not, here too, ‘the archive’ as a chosen focus implies a meditation on the conditions of historical representation, the making of history and – this is especially important here – on the existence or non-existence of official safeguard-institutions like museums as well as their modus operandi. In this context, the observation of more and more intertwined artistic and scientific ‘cultures’ (exemplified in the use of oral history, for instance) seems to be extremely relevant especially in the absence of major platforms for critical debate. This essay therefore brings together questions of artists’ involvement in archival practices, artistic knowledge production, and the role that artists and art can play in society.

Keywords:

• art
• archive
• artists’ spaces
• Cairo
• Algiers

Notes on contributor

Kerstin Pinther is a Professor at the Institute for Art History at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. Until 2012 she held a position as Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Professor for the Arts of Africa at Free University Berlin. Her research focus lies on modern and contemporary art and visual culture in West and North Africa, Egypt and the Diaspora as well as on architecture and urbanism in Africa. Kerstin Pinther also works as a curator (most recent exhibition Afropolis. City, Media, Art, with L. Förster and C. Hanussek). Her books include New Spaces for Negotiating Art (and) Histories in Africa (with U. Nzewi 2015) as well as Black Paris. Kunst und Geschichte einer schwarzen Diaspora (with T. Wendl). She is currently involved in a research project on Design in Africa.

Notes

1. The exhibition was opened at the Museum for Photography, Braunschweig, moved on to the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and was finally on display at the Museum Folkwang, Essen. See the catalogue by Ebner and Wicke (2013).

2. As exemplified in the work of Tshibumba, see Fabian (1996).

3. See The Power of Art by Carl Hindmarch, 2006. [http://vimeo.com/109120958], accessed 19 June 2015.

4. Alone, Together … In Media Res, 01:46.

5. According to Jan Assmann (1992) the communicative memory is linked to a specific social group, whose members share - through the means of verbal communication - common memories. Unlike the cultural memory which is more officially linked to power, the communicative memory is (among other features) characterized by its interactive and unstructered nature.

6. See Hala Elkoussy, [www.halaelkoussy.com], accessed 8 January 2015.

7. The FLN, The National Liberation Front (in French: Front de Libération Nationale) was the movement during the liberation war against the French rule in Algeria. Its armed wing during the war was called the National Liberation Army (ALN).

8. See Erika Nimis' contribution in African Arts 48/2, where she argues that Sedira's work must be understood as an attempt to wrest the memory of the civil war from its solely national reading by the government.

9. Zineb Sedira in [www.artfortheworld.net/wwd/2011/theMediterraneanApproach/], accessed 8 January 2015.

10. See Chominot (2010) and, for a (slightly) revised version (2012), [http://culturevisuelle.org/histoiredimages/], accessed 19 June 2015.