December 10, 2015, 6–8pm
December 11–12, 10am–8pm
José de Guimarães International Arts Centre (CIAJG)
Guimarães
Portugal
Curators: Filipa César, Tobias Hering
The 4th Edition of Encounters Beyond History borrows its title from an unfinished film stored in an archive in Bissau. Luta ca caba inda (The struggle is not over yet) was conceived as a documentary film on post-independence Guinea-Bissau, but was abandoned in the editing process in 1980. It nevertheless testifies to a decade of collective and internationally connected cinema praxis in the country, as part of the people’s struggle for independence from Portuguese colonialism (1963–74) and subsequent nation-building.
The fragmentary remains of this praxis archived at the Instituto Nacional de Cinema e Audiovisual (INCA) in Bissau—finished and unfinished Guinean films, audio recordings, and film prints donated by countries that supported the struggle—now become subject matter for a cine-archeology. In 2012, in collaboration with the Guinean filmmakers Sana na N’Hada, Flora Gomes and Suleimane Biai, and with institutional support from Arsenal-Institute for Film and Video Art (Berlin), artist Filipa César and curator Tobias Hering embarked on a long-term project aimed at re-accessing this archive. Its peculiar state, suspended between ruination and work-in-progress, activates questions about past promises and their contemporary pertinence. In the course of the Luta ca caba inda project, a series of discursive events and public screenings have been dedicated to activating the potencies of this archive.
4th Encounters Beyond History: Luta ca caba inda—An Archive in Relation brings together artists, writers and researchers whose work has contributed to outline a critical field to approach these documents under today’s post-colonial condition. The concept for this international encounter is informed by Edouard Glissant’s notion of relation—the pathways of exchange that are never one-way and whose meaning is rarely unequivocal, establishing bonds that are independent of genealogy and origin but rather promote empathic connections.
Participants:
Jean-Pierre Bekolo (filmmaker, Yaoundé)
Sónia Borges (historian, PhD candidate, Lisbon, Berlin)
Wladimir de Brito (lawyer, Guimarães)
Anselm Franke (curator, artistic director, HKW, Berlin)
Nuno Faria (curator, artistic director CIAJG, Guimarães, Lisbon)
Louis Henderson (artist, Paris, London)
Grada Kilomba (psychologist, writer, artist, Berlin)
Catarina Laranjeiro (historian, PhD candidate, Lisbon, Berlin)
Patrícia Leal (artist and filmmaker, Lisbon)
Olivier Marboeuf (curator, producer, artistic director, Khiasma, Paris)
Sana na N’Hada (filmmaker, Bissau)
Yonamine (artist, Berlin)
Ala Younis (curator and artist, Amman)
Programme
December 10:
6pm
Nuno Faria
Opening
Filipa César, Tobias Hering
Introduction: Materialities
7pm
Film
O regresso de Amílcar Cabral, 1976 (UK, Sweden)
Directed by Sana na N’Hada
December 11:
10am
Tobias Hering
Introduction: Geographies
10.30am
Olivier Marboeuf
“An ecology of darkness: Performative Transmission of Political Archives, Between Secret, Shield and Trickery”
11.30am
Patricia Leal
“Casa dos Estudantes do Império: An Unexpected Antechamber of the African Liberation Movements”
1pm
Lunch break
2:30pm
Jean-Pierre Bekolo
“Cutting the Nimbus of ‘Unedited Footage’”
3:30pm
Louis Henderson
“Compost in the Créole Garden: The Archive as a Multispecies Assemblage”
4:30pm
Coffee break
5pm
Wladimir de Brito
“Film as evidence?”
6pm
Closing discussion, Day One
7pm
Film
Fanado, 1984 (GB)
Directed by Sana na N’Hada
December 12:
10am
Filipa César
Introduction: Forces
10:30am
Anselm Franke
“The Frontiers of Modernity Enrol Its Others: Thoughts on Epistemology and Emancipation”
11:30am
Sónia Vaz Borges
“Nós Vamos Construir—We are Going to Build”
1pm
Lunch break
2:30pm
Grada Kilomba
“Decolonizing Knowledge”
3:30pm
Ala Younis
“Duplications and Contradictions in the Past of a Temporal Universe”
4:30pm
Coffee break
5pm
Catarina Laranjeiro
“African commandos: The Inability to Look At the Past”
6pm
Yonamine
“Pretoforma-se”
7pm
Closing discussion, Day Two
Free registration, subject to the room’s maximum capacity. Registration may be made in person at the José de Guimarães International Centre for the Arts or by downloading the online form from the site www.ciajg.pt, which should be sent to: [email protected].
