• Mon 26 09 2016 •
The Power of Truth: Strategies of Visual Archiving and Counter-Archiving in Conflict Zones Tamer El Said, Madhusree Dutta

with MADHUSREE DUTTA, TAMER EL SAID

Archives are the seat of power for defining historical truth, which, as the saying goes, is one of the first victims of war and civil conflict. Official chronologies provide their one-sided accounts, and propaganda rewrites history, excluding the subjective experiences and objective plight of those lacking access to the means of representation. At the same time, today’s technological possibilities allow artists and activists to accumulate their own counter-archives from zones of conflict, revealing stories that lie beyond the pale of the redacted media narrative. How do artists gather images in zones of conflict, and which archival politics do they pursue? Are the readings of archived images from a conflict zone essentially textured by the dominant social perceptions and memories? These questions provide the point of departure for a discussion between filmmaker and Academy member Madhusree Dutta, who has worked to build a digital image archive in the violently contested zone of Kashmir, and Tamer El Said, a filmmaker and founding member of Cimateque, an alternative film center in downtown Cairo involved in archival projects.

19:00
English
Venue: ACADEMYSPACE, Herwarthstraße 3, 50672 Cologne
Free admission