Inward Outward. Critical Archival Engagements with Sounds and Films of Coloniality

SYMPOSIUM | 12-15 Oct 2021 | Zoom Online

The international symposium Inward Outward brings 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.

We are partnering with Inward/Outward for the below conference, which features Ariella Aïsha Azoulay as a keynote speaker, as well as keynotes Cécile Accilien, Amal Alhaag, Teresa Cisneros, Eliza Steinbock, and Wayne Modest.

Registration: https://bit.ly/io2021registration

Inward Outward Symposium

Emotion in the Archive

13–15 October 2021 | Online

Scroll down on this link to see the entire program. Click on each session to see names of speakers.

Dear all,

We're excited to announce that regisration for the Inward Outward symposium is now open!

https://bit.ly/io2021registration

The symposium Inward Outward investigates the status of moving image and sound archives as they intertwine with questions of coloniality, identity and race, and seeks to bring theory and practice into dialogue by drawing together people from different professional and creative backgrounds.

This year’s symposium takes place as a series of sessions spread across October 13–15, 2021, where we’ll gather online. We are honoured to present filmmaker, curator and professor Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (Brown University) as the symposium’s keynote speaker.

This second Inward Outward edition will focus on Emotion in the Archive, with the archive understood as resting in both physical structures (e.g. national, regional, local or personal) and less tangible "cultural archives’ (e.g. beliefs, knowledge, collective memories, etc.).

As we work to document the current moment, and continue to interrelate our archival workings with the afterlives of colonialism and the identity, memory and racial politics that inform our present, we are moved by discomfort, anger, refusal, love. The work we do in and with archives is implicated in, and/or driven by, the emotional. But how do we document or archive our emotions? How are these captured in both sounds and moving images? How can emotional modes of engagement lead us to work differently in, and with, the archive? What emotions push us to ‘undo’ and ‘unlearn’ the dominant and imperial practices that determine our professional habitus and archival work? In addition to the work presented by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay these questions will be addressed in three sessions: Defiance & Anger, Shame & Guilt and Love & Compassion.

WED 13 OCT

Defiance & Anger | 14:30–17:30 CET

Amal Alhaag & Teresa Cisneros, Daniela Agostinho, Julie Métais

Moderator: Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken

THU 14 OCT

Shame & Guilt | 14:30–17:30 CET

Eliza Steinbock, Mirjam Linschooten & Sameer Farooq

FRI 15 OCT

Love & Compassion | 14:30–17:30 CET

Cécile Accilien, Mary Huelsbeck, Jue Yang, Stephanie Sapienza

Keynote: Ariella Aïsha Azoulay | 18:00–20:00 CET

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Moderator: Wayne Modest

MON OCT 18

Open Conversation:

The Pragmatics of Emotional Labour - An After-Session | 15:30 CET

Hosted by Inward Outward organisers as an open space to discuss anything that came up for participants during the symposium. And as a place to sit with and think through discomfort.

To view a more detailed programme and to learn about the speakers visit: https://bit.ly/io2021programme

To stay updated, please follow the symposium's Facebook event.

You can register for the symposium for free, here: https://bit.ly/io2021registration

Looking forward to seeing you all!

The Inwward/Outward Team

INWARD OUTWARD

Archives, assumed to be containers of memory, are vested with a particular power to constitute and define who is and who is not included in (his)stories. Inward Outward asks what approaches and interventions exist (or could be imagined) that question archival practices in an effort to “decolonize” the archive, and explores what “decolonizing” the archive—within and beyond the walls of established institutions—could offer for the production of new bodies of knowledge.

There is something specific to sound and moving images as they hold a particular type of textured representation that uniquely captures the visual and aural qualities of who or what is being recorded. Taking a critical archiving approach as its base, Inward Outward explores what is specific to moving image and sound materials, including both materials of the past and those created in the present, and the archival practices used to collect, preserve, and make them accessible.

Initiated between the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and Sound and Vision, and with the support of the Research Center of Material Culture (RCMC), the first Inward Outward took place in January of 2020.

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

The second Inward Outward will take place October 12-14, 2021 online.

The upcoming edition will focus on Emotion in the Archive. This theme emerged during the first symposium, and has since occupied increasing space as a direct response to recent global occurrences.

Publication 2020

Download the publication of the 2020 Inward Outward symposium on Critical Archival Engagements with Sounds and Films of Coloniality. Conceived as a way to further discussions that surfaced during the symposium, this digital publication collects different contributions from the speakers of Inward Outward. Across 80-pages, 16 individual texts unfold, exploring coloniality and questioning what “decolonizing” the archive might look like as it intersects with sound and moving image collections, archival practices, artistic approaches, intimacy, reimagining the archive, and more.

Open gallery