CANCELLED - Museums in Europe are not European

In light of recent events, it is not possible for Jewish Algerian-Palestinian professor Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, who was born and raised in colonised Palestine, to come to Brussels. Therefore, after careful deliberation with Travelling Sources' curators Hari Prasad Sacré, Arshia Ali Azmat & Hoda Siahtiri, we have decided to cancel the three-day festival.

Read the curators' statement here.

In this lecture, professor Azoulay addresses the impossibility of decolonising colonial museums, such as the Belgian Royal Museum for Central Africa, without decolonising the world. Addressing how stolen art, regime of documents and contemporary refugeeism are historically connected, she provides a transnational perspective on decolonisation. 

Following the lecture, the student platform wedecolonizevub will moderate a panel discussion with Dr. Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans (VUB) and a Q&A with the audience. 

• Ariella Aïsha Azoulay is an author, curator of anti-colonial archives, film essayist, and theorist of imperialism and colonialism and their various technologies (from partition to photography). She is Professor of Modern Culture and Media and the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University. Her work focuses on unlearning imperial histories, engaging with archives to generate anti-colonial knowledge and generate potential histories. 

• Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans is lecturer in photography and contemporary art at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She has published on theory and history of art and photography, especially on grass-roots imaging of dissent as well as on representations of history in recent art. Her current work centers on community-based archiving practices and participatory art.

• Patricia da Costa is a writer of Angolan roots. Although she has been writing fiction for several years, she has given non-fiction a chance to discuss social issues and taboos by writing down her personal experiences. She is also an active board member within WeDecolonizeVUB, podcast host and literature enthusiast.

• WeDecolonizeVUB consists of a library space on campus, a social media platform and a series of events that are all carried by a diverse group of racialized students, they are the beating heart of the project. We aim to give the students of the VUB the opportunity to learn more about (de)colonization and anti-racism by creating a safe space that will tackle these sensitive topics and make room for students to meet, interact and exchange their thoughts and opinions.