Mauritania

Archive is not restricted to the image or the ‘material’. Rather, it resides within a multiplicity of forms that also include the immaterial, such as orality and performance. Rituals, song, poetry, dance, folktales and puppetry are all archives in their own right; carriers of collective memories and histories. This iteration explored the multiplicity of the archival and looked at these different forms to complexify and expand on the methodology of shifting narratives and appropriating heritage material, drawing on a diverse constellation of elements with which we can tell our stories. In this part of the program, we explored orality and performance in combination with the visual, looking at the Mauritanian space and how it connects with other spaces regionally. Positioning ourselves in Mauritania, we took on these questions from a Mauritian perspective/vantage point, while engaging the space of networks and connections beyond colonial borders.

The program featured puppetry, music performances, talks, screenings and an exhibition with paintings and photography, allowing us to interrogate the ways in which orality and performance connect with and inspire existent forms of visual representation.