Navigation through vibrations : Qalqalah, a reader

At Salon de lec­ture Jacques Kerchache, musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac

With Lotte Arndt (the­o­reti­cian, Goethe-Institut Fellow at Villa Vassilieff) and Marian Nur Goni (researcher) and the last issues’ edi­tors.

Laying on the work of con­tem­po­rary artists and pro­jects engaged in assem­bling pho­to­graphic archives related to weak­ened com­mu­ni­ties, researcher Marian Nur Goni will to reflect on the ways to remedy the memory vacuum by working on image. Her inter­ven­tion will be pre­ceded by a pre­sen­ta­tion of Qalqalah’s past and future issues and fol­lowed by a dis­cus­sion between the con­trib­u­tors and the public.

This con­ver­sa­tion ini­ti­ated by Bétonsalon — Center for Art and Research and Kadist, will give the oppor­tu­nity to dis­cuss the research direc­tions devel­oped through Qalqalah over these last two years. Qalqalah is a bi-lin­gual online pub­li­ca­tion designed as a space of inter­sec­tion that intends to shift western ref­er­ences.

Qalqalah bor­rows its title from a text written by the Cairene curator Sarah Rifky. Her epony­mous heroin lives in a near future and grad­u­ally loses memory in a world where lin­guistic, artistic and eco­nomic notions have qui­etly col­lapsed.

Lotte Arndt teaches at the art school l’École supérieure d’art et design de Valence since 2014. In 2013, she fin­ished her PhD dealing with Paris based cul­tural magazines related to Africa (Paris, Berlin), and worked as researcher in res­i­dency at the art school l’École supérieure d’art de Clermont Métropole (2013-2014). She coor­di­nated the artistic research pro­ject "Karawane" that accom­pa­nied the making of the Belgian pavilion of Vincent Meessen and Katerina Gregos at the Venice Biennale 2015. She is part of the artists and researcher group Ruser l’image; pub­lishes reg­u­larly on topics regarding the post­colo­nial pre­sent and artistic strate­gies in pur­suit of sub­verting Eurocentric insti­tu­tions and nar­ra­tives. Recent pub­li­ca­tions include Crawling Doubles. Colonial Collecting and Affect (with Mathieu K. Abonnenc and Catalina Lozano), Paris, B42, 2016 ; Hunting & Collecting. Sammy Baloji,(with Asger Taiaksev), Brussels, Paris, MuZEE and Imane Farès, 2016 and Les revues font la cul­ture ! Négociations post­colo­niales dans les péri­odiques parisiens relatifs à l’Afrique (2047-2012), WVT, 2016.

Marian Nur Goni is an EHESS Phd stu­dent. Her researches focus on East African his­tory (with a par­tic­ular focus on his­tory and anthro­pology inter­ac­tion), con­tem­po­rary art in Africa and its recep­tion in the West, and finally art prac­tices in Africa. She pub­lishes - among others - in Fotota, a research blog co-founded with the his­to­rian Érika Nimis. In 2014-2015 she received a grant from Quai Branly museum for col­lec­tion doc­u­men­ta­tion.

The audio recording of this event is avail­able by clicking here

The first issue of Qalqalah (released in April 2015) is a col­lec­tion of con­tri­bu­tions from Marie-laure Allain Bonilla, Lotte Arndt, Em’kal Eyongakpa, Maryam Jafri, Saadat Hasan Manto, Pedro Neves Marques, Marian Nur Goni et Erika Nimis, Helihanta Rajaonarison, Sarah Rifky and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa.

Read it here

The second issue of Qalqalah (released in February 2016) is a col­lec­tion of con­tri­bu­tions from Antariksa, Biljana Ciric, Maxime Guitton, Marianna Hovhannisyan, Otobong Nkanga, Victoria Noorthoorn, Sarah Rifky and Simon Soon.

Read it here

Editorial con­tent : Virginie Bobin, Mélanie Bouteloup, Léna Monnier, Elodie Royer and Emilie Villez. 
Graphic design : Syndicat.

The third of Qalqalah issue will be released in the course of 2017. Lotte Arndt (the­o­reti­cian, Goethe-Institut Fellow at Villa Vassilieff) is the asso­ciate editor.

More infor­ma­tion on Bétonsalon — Centre d’art et de recherche’s and Kadist Art Foundation Paris’ web­sites.