Call for applications, *Doctoral Winter School in Arts and Anthropology,
Heritage-making, Uses and Museumification of the Past*, Cape Town and
Johannesburg (July 22nd – August 2nd, 2019), *DL: March 30th.*
The process of heritage-making in the context of a nation (re)building is
multifaceted. In periods of historical transition, challenges are many and
the fragility of the political context is fertile ground for revisiting the
representation of the past. To understand these processes, an
interdisciplinary engagement with contributions from history, anthropology,
archeology, political science, art history and museology is necessary.
Interdisciplinary collaboration, however, is not always easy to establish
within the existing research institutional framework, built around separate
disciplines. The main goal of this winter school is to create a doctoral
training space and interdisciplinary exchange between researchers working
on heritage- making process, uses and “museumification” of the past in
connection with nation-building, or, more broadly, the construction of
identities.
The South African context is particularly rich and provides complex
terrains for considering these issues as “a post-conflict zone whose
relationships with the past and sites of memory and trauma are being
closely scrutinized” (Meskell, 2012). Whilst Western Europe has long been
considered as the laboratory of modern heritage practices, and Germany in
particular as a fundamental example for the study of *Geschichtsbeweltigung*,
recent historiography has shown to what an extent South Africa has become
in the last decades the site of innovative theoretical approaches and
practices (e.g. Nuttall and Coetzee 1998, Davison 1998, 2005, Legassick and
Rassool 2000, Coombes 2003, Lalu 2009, Meskell 2011, Esterhuysen 2012,
Hamilton *et al.* 2012, Hamilton and Skotnes 2015, Peterson, Gavua and
Rassool 2015, to give just some examples) that are breaking new ground in
finding ways of coming to terms with difficult pasts, questioning
fundamental issues of authority and representation.
The winter school takes the form of specialized training in social science
research, developed in collaboration with different institutional partners,
scholars, artists and curators working on colonial archives, collections
and memories. The first edition was held in Istanbul, at the French
Institute of Anatolian Studies (IFEA) (June-July 2016), the second in Cape
Town (July – August 2017), the third one in Porto-Novo (July 2018).
*Format of the winter school *
The school has several components
• *lectures *covering both the methodology of research and topics such as
the history of museums or urban policies in South Africa. In addition to
this “classical” format of courses and workshops, lecturers will engage in
daily informal discussions with students to help them redesign their
research project, develop interview guides, find references and documentary
sources, etc.
• *a workshop at the **Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg* (see
below a short description)
• *guided visits of the city *(museums, contemporary art galleries and art
centres, areas affected by contemporary transformations) and, if possible,
guided visits to archaeological sites.
• *field research project*: teams of three students will conduct a research
project (interviews, participant observation, research in the central or
local national / private archives, etc.).
• *a workshop of curatorial practice* covering practices in the design of
an exhibition, from the museographic project to the development of
partnerships and mediation.
• The school will end up with the *presentation* of results of this
preliminary research in a form chosen by the PhD researchers: an oral
presentation, a scientific poster, a photo / multimedia exhibition
(excerpts from interviews, video material), a documentary film project or a
happening in a museum / artist’s studio.
*Scientific content:*
The courses and the PhD research projects will be focused on three main
themes, namely: 1. Contemporary artistic practices, 2. Urban policies and
politics of memory, 3. Museographies.
*1. Contemporary artistic practices: *We will interrogate artistic
practices operating in relationship with transformations of urban space,
political or societal amnesia. By meeting contemporary artists and visiting
museums and art spaces we will examine aesthetic, political and
epistemological dimensions of the encounter between urban and museum
policies and contemporary art. We will specifically interrogate the
continuities and differences between art / “anthropological” object(s), as
well as the performativity of the body and of the voice in the museum space.
2*. Museographies. *We invite doctoral researchers to question the process
of rewriting, renegotiation, and appropriation of the past from museum
collections (ie. Imperial, colonial, apartheid, etc.). It aims to help
students understand, explore and develop curatorial practices for the
display of historical, “ethnographic” or art objects. The lectures and
museum visits will problematize the power- knowledge inherent in the
construction of archives, the production of sources and their use for the
writing of history. We will specifically interrogate the continuities and
differences between art / “anthropological” object(s), as well as the
performativity of the body and the voice in the museum space.
3. *Urban policies and politics of memory*. The courses will focus on the
representations of the past in the urban fabric of Cape Town. They will
also address various methodologies to “read” urban space, including visual
ethnography, perspectives from science and technology studies, etc. The
intention is to invite students to reflect on how urban space itself
(re)presents different historical narratives and builds the cultural memory
of the city and the “nation”: How does one rebuild the (post)colonial,
post-apartheid city in South Africa? How specific “sites” (places, key
events in the history of colonialism, slavery, apartheid) become realms of
memory (Nora) or, in contrast, places of forgetting, of political or
societal amnesia?
*Convenors:* Monica HEINTZ, Université Paris Nanterre; Bronwyn LACE, Centre
for the Less Good Idea, Damiana OTOIU, University of Bucharest ; Anna
SEIDERER, Paris 8 University ; Jane TAYLOR, University of the Western Cape.
*Workshop at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesbourg*
The center aims to find the less good idea by creating and supporting
experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts projects. It is a
physical and immaterial space to pursue incidental discoveries made in the
process of producing work, it follows impulses, connections and
revelations. It is though as physical space for artists to come together
over two seasons every year and for curators to bring together combinations
of text, performance, image and dance (https://lessgoodidea.com/) For
Season 6, the first intensive workshop ends on 26-27th of July 2019,
Thiresh Govender (architect, urban researcher –
https://www.urbanworks.co.za/) and Sello Pesa (choreographer/performer and
director of http://www.ntsoana.co.za/) will attempt to pull performance out
of the physical confines of The Centre and on to the streets of Joburg
through a series of performed processions. For the students of the winter
school this would be the “hands on” part of the visual anthropology
classes, as some of they will be engaged in recording the event and follow
it from the center to the streets, others will subsequently edit and turn
it into a short documentary film.
The doctoral researchers will have the opportunity to meet researchers
(anthropologists, sociologists, art historians, etc.) and also artists,
museum professionals, architects and urban planners. They will also benefit
from the resources that will be made available by different local archives
and museums. The PhD students will present and collectively exchange on
their PhD research and on the field research projects.
*Selection of Participants:*
Prospective students should send a brief presentation of their doctoral
research (2-3 pages plus bibliography and sources) and a CV, in English, *by
March 30th 2019 *to heritage.doctoralschool@gmail.com. Applicants will be
notified of the issue by the April 15th, 2019.
*Logistics :*
Participation in the summer school is free. PhD students must cover their
own travel expenses. Additional funding covering travel expenses and
accommodation (shared double room) is available for students from the
region. When sending your application, please indicate if you require such
assistance.
*Winter school supported and* *organized by*
*Glissements de terrain. **Les **collections muséales réinvesties par le
champ de l’art contemporain* project of Université Paris Lumières, Paris,
*The Centre for the Less Good Idea,* Johannesburg,
Iziko Museums of South Africa, Cape Town,
University Paris 8, Saint-Denis, Laboratory Arts of images and Contemporary
Arts (AIAC),
UPN/ CNRS, Laboratory of Ethnology and Comparative Sociology,
The Francophone Regional Center for Advanced Research in
Social Sciences, University of Bucharest (CEREFREA),
French Institute of South Africa- IFAS Recherche, Johannesburg,
Respatrimoni 