Frank Davis Memorial Lecture Series

Decolonizing the Museum?

Speaker: Françoise Vergès - Cofounder of ‘Decolonize the Arts’, antiracist and decolonial feminist activist.

This lecture discusses a series of practices and experiments initiated by Françoise Vergès around the decolonisation of the museum for the ‘Museum without Objects’ (Réunion Island, 2004-2020), ‘The Slave in the  Louvre: An Invisible Humanity’ (Paris Triennal, 2013), and for the Musée Delacroix and Musée de Rueil–Malmaison.

Cofounder of the French association ‘Decolonize the Arts’ Françoise Vergès is a an antiracist and decolonial feminist activist. In 2020 she published The Wombs of Women, Race, Capital, Feminism and Aimé Césaire, Resolutely Black. Conversations with Françoise Vergès. She grew up in the Reunion Island, a French postcolony, and has lived in Algeria, France, Mexico, USA and UK. In the mid-70s, she collected and published testimonies on torture, murder, disappearance and repression in countries under military dictatorship (Chile) or civil war (El Salvador). Following a BA (San Diego, 1986) and a PhD (Berkeley, 1995) she taught at Sussex in 1996 and Goldsmiths, 2000-2007. She was President of the French National Committee for the Memory and History of Slavery 2008-2012 and project advisor for Documenta 11. She has published extensively, worked with filmmakers and artists Isaac Julien, Yinka Shonibare, Kader Attia, Hervé Télémaque and is the author of films on Caribbean writers.

Organised by Professor Sarah Wilson (The Courtauld) and Professor Sussan Babaie (The Courtauld) as part of their Frank Davis Memorial Lecture series titled ‘Exiles and Émigrés’.

This event has passed.

6 Oct 2021

Wednesday 6th October, 2.30pm - 4.00pm BST

Free, booking essential

Lecture Theatre 2, Vernon Square and Online via livestream

Please note this event will be live streamed to allow those outside London access to the event. All those who wish to access the event via this online method should book an ‘Online’ ticket rather than ‘Lecture Theatre’ ticket.  

Booking closes 30 minutes before the event start time. 

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Research
Photograph of a black woman standing with her hands on her hips against a backdrop of a bookcase.
Image: Antony Françin, 2019

Citations