Publication of the 2023 Inward Outward Symposium
Witnessing/Care & the Archive
On March 16–17, 2023, the third edition of the Inward Outward symposium took place in Amsterdam. Initiated between the KITLV and Sound & Vision, with special support from the RCMC and in collaboration with Framer Framed, Inward Outward brought together archival practitioners, artists, academics, and researchers to explore the status of moving image and sound archives as they intertwine with questions of coloniality, identity and race, focusing specifically around the theme of Witnessing/Care & the Archive.
Conceived as a way to further discussions that surfaced during the symposium, this digital publication collects different contributions from the speakers of Inward Outward.
The terms witnessing and care have gained a fair amount of currency in recent times, as public institutions scramble to deal—or give the appearance that they are dealing—with calls to “decolonize” archives, to “redistribute” looted memories, to “redress” irreparable wrongs. As a consequence, while there have been some significant propositions to grapple with these words, there has also been much hollow noise.
So what could one more of these conversations really do?
Rather than adding to the din, and resisting trends that propose “best practices” or formulaic solutions to complex issues, the presentations at Inward Outward stressed the persistence of difficulty. Our conversations offered no suggestions that a panacea might be found, no indication of a new pro-forma method for finding novel ways, yet again, to make visible what so many in Europe do not wish to see. Rather, we interrogated what was—and continues to be—related to the protracted period of modernity; this post-enlightenment moment in which extractivism and the “thingification” of peoples, animals, plants and vital elements is the norm.
Across this publication 9 individual texts unfold, critically engaging with conversations on witnessing, care and repair in the archive.
Select one of the key terms below to navigate through the publication:
Inward Outward engages critically with the complex interrelations of archives, coloniality, sound and moving images. For the third iteration of our symposium (on March 16 and 17, 2023) we convened conversations on witnessing, care and repair in the archive. We sought to mobilise Witnessing/Care together, as complementary practices, calling to each other as tools to […]
I think about why we write letters—as an antidote to distance, as a cure for miles and the spaces that stretch between us. I think about the distance that is between us which is only the distance of life and death which isn’t so great a distance as I once imagined. — (Miller) How do […]
Athambile Masola (Poet, Writer, Researcher and Lecturer, University of Cape Town)
Dr Evelyn Wan (Utrecht University)
Quand un ancien meurt c’est tout une bibliothèque qui brule. The proverb cited above by and often attributed to to Amadou Hampâté Bâ addresses the transmission of knowledge, memory, and traditions. It also encapsulates the experience of my colleagues Fabienne Douce, Réginald Louissaint Junior, Moïse Pierre, George Harry Rouzier, Mackenson Saint-Felix and I […]
As demands for the return of looted artifacts to their communities of origin are once again intensifying, what are we to make of similarly displaced and sequestered moving images, in particular ethnographic and colonial film collections which holding institutions now frequently classify as “shared heritage”? The challenges facing audiovisual archives that care for such “sensitive” […]
Yvonne Ng (WITNESS)
As Luc uses the layout of text in a very intentional way in this work, we have decided to include images from the designed publication in order to present it accurately. To view Luc’s work as designed in the digital publication, you can download an extract of their work or download the entire publication.
What are the different ways we can approach the “work” we do while asleep, and treat dreams as stories that can be shared, circulated, and stored, keeping the record of the past and the present as letters from and to the future? How can we attend to the ways dreams reflect collective experiences, thoughts, predicaments, […]