“À bas le colonialisme ! À bas l'imperialisme !”Festival panafricain d'Alger [The Panafrican Festival in Algiers] (William Klein, 1969)
Jul
26
One Voice Day
Black hands holding each other. In translation the caption reads “Down with colonialism! Down with imperialism!”. DP: William Klein et al.
In typical Western fashion the credits for William Klein's Festival panafricain d'Alger focusses on the French and American participants. After Algeria regained its independence in 1962, it became Africa's – and the #AfricanDiaspora's – centre for postcolonial and liberation moments.
The 12-day Festival panafricain attracted 5000 people from all over the African continent, as well as liberation fighters from the United States.
AfricanDiaspora
“An object dies when the living glance trained upon it disappears. And when we disappear, our objects will be confined to the place where we send black things: to the museum.” Les statues meurent aussi [Statues also Die] (Ghislain Cloquet, Chris Marker + Alain Resnais, 1953)
May
18
International Museum Day
A Black African woman looks at objects of African origin – several statues, a mask, an object decorated with beadwork – in an antique store's window. Behind her white people pass by. It's raining. DP: Ghislain Cloquet.
Commissioned by the #PanAfrican literary magazine Présence Africaine to make a short film about African art, Chris Marker and his collaborator Alain Resnais – the latter still emboldened by his Van Gogh (1948) – were struck that unlike the Dutch painter's work, this #art was not on display in the Louvre or a similar cultural temple, but in the ethnological Musée de l'Homme.
– narrator
These works of “Negro” art that embody such a deep cultural and artistic significance for the creators and the people they are part of, were, within the boundaries of Western civilisation, merely things. The editing (Alain Resnais), photography (Ghislain Cloquet) and dialogue (Chris Marker) bring life to these works. Through these voices they speak to the viewer, escaping the institutes' walls.
This voice was enough for the CNC to censor Les statues meurent aussi; only the first third of the film, the segment that's not blatantly #AntiColonial, was to be watched. And to this day, the documentary still has not seen a restored, digital release.