Abstract
16/12/2021, Panel D: Non-canonical voices in relation to archival stratifications and established historiographies
This paper will discuss an in-progress artistic research project that explores a repressed part of Swedish colonial history, the Swedish missionary project in the Congo Free State, later Belgian Congo, by unboxing and unfolding a hidden trove of historical image materials. Piles of unregistered decaying glass-plate negatives and film reels photographed in the Congo by Swedish missionaries are stored in cardboard boxes and wooden cabinets held both in the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm, and in private attics by heirs of the missionaries. These dispersed material remains of the missionary project have been collected and digitized together with Congolese collaborators, artist Freddy Tsimba and writer and art historian André Yoka Lye, with the aim of creating a new decolonial counter-archive.
This paper will discuss an in-progress artistic research project that explores a repressed part of Swedish colonial history, the Swedish missionary project in the Congo Free State, later Belgian Congo, by unboxing and unfolding a hidden trove of historical image materials. Piles of unregistered decaying glass-plate negatives and film reels photographed in the Congo by Swedish missionaries are stored in cardboard boxes and wooden cabinets held both in the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm, and in private attics by heirs of the missionaries. These dispersed material remains of the missionary project have been collected and digitized together with Congolese collaborators, artist Freddy Tsimba and writer and art historian André Yoka Lye, with the aim of creating a new decolonial counter-archive.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Fotografia E Historia/Photography and History 2021 |
| Subtitle of host publication | program & abstracts |
| Publisher | Calameo |
| Pages | 67-68 |
| Number of pages | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | Conferência Internacional Fotografia Photography e História | International Conference Photography and History 2021 - Universidade da Madiera, Funchal, Portugal Duration: 15 Dec 2021 → 17 Dec 2021 https://photographyhistoryconference.wordpress.com/ (Conference Website) https://www.calameo.com/books/006919654ef3f12a86e44 (Conference Program & Abstracts) |
Conference
| Conference | Conferência Internacional Fotografia Photography e História | International Conference Photography and History 2021 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Portugal |
| City | Funchal |
| Period | 15/12/21 → 17/12/21 |
| Other | The international conference “Photography and History” is promoted by the Regional Secretariat for Tourism and Culture and the Regional Directorate for Culture / Museum of Photography of Madeira – Atelier Vicente’s, and is co-organized by NOVA Institute of Communication / EVAM Observatory and the University of Madeira / Culture Council. The conference approaches the role of photography in different contexts – such as the institutional and personal archive, in social networks or in artistic practice -, as a means to stimulate history, here understood as a narrative that questions contemporaneity based on evidences and regimes of thought and visuality from the past. |
| Internet address |
|