From Discussion to Percussion | Art, Archives, Performances

As part of The Centre for the Less Good Idea's residency at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain.

How do we begin to look at an image collectively? What are the ways in which a visual archive – entrenched in the heavy histories of colonialism and rendered silent through an extractive approach to photography – can begin to speak? In provoking and surfacing the narratives embedded in these archives, it is music, performance, improvisation and collaboration that can become vital tools for rereading images in a contemporary way. In this discussion, artists, academics and researchers engage in an experimental, performative and playful space for exchange and dialogue between artists and thinkers whose practices are devoted to the material traces of colonial history. The first hour will see a discussion between Bronwyn Lace, Anna Seiderer, Christine Barthe, Marcus Neustetter, and Pélagie Gbaguidi around the idea of art in response to the archive. In the second hour, this thinking is extended to the drum taking the form of an open, participatory percussion workshop with Vusi Mdoyi, Micca Manganye, Teresa Phuti Mojela and Angelo Moustapha.

Discussants | Avec Anna Seiderer, Christine Barthe, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Bronwyn Lace, Julien Faure-Conorton, Omid Hashemi, Neo Muyanga & Marcus Neustetter
Footage | Courtesy of Collection Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine.
Performers | Vusi Mdoyi, Micca Manganye, Teresa Phuti Mojela & Angelo Moustapha