Call for artists for the project "Angles: Reappropriating Missionary Audiovisual Archives from Colonial Contexts"
KADOC is a cultural archive affiliated with the University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium) that, amongst many other collections, holds an extensive collection of audiovisual archives that have emerged from colonial missionary contexts. 2020 saw the digitization of one of these audiovisual archives: the film collection of the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers). Containing 80 different mission films – feature films, educational and ethnographic films and nature documentaries – produced between 1946 and 1967 in today’s Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, the White Fathers’ films provide a rich tapestry of missionary perceptions and representations of Central Africa during the colonial period.
ANGLES, a project embedded in KU Leuven, was established to make way for a creative and multi-angled approach of this audiovisual heritage collection. It wishes to stimulate the exploration of alternative interpretations and the re-viewing of the White Fathers’ films by inviting different methodologies and expressions.
Our OPEN CALL addresses creative practitioners (preferentially but not exclusively) residing in the DRC, Rwanda or Burundi, or of Congolese, Rwandese or Burundian heritage, with proven experience with and interest in archives, audiovisual heritage and/or colonial history. We invite proposals for artworks (in any form and any medium) rooted in a reflective dialogue with the White Fathers’ films that engages with questions regarding
- colonial and missionary heritage and the coloniality of historical knowledge
- colonial and missionary archives as socio-political structures
- notions of ownership and custodianship of colonial and missionary archives and postcolonial art
- digital heritage, digital sharing and restitution ◎ ethical issues in the digitization of cultural heritage
- African culture and the digital
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More info is available on the KADOC website.