Fare e disfare l’archivio. Tra pratiche artistiche contemporanee e opzioni decoloniali a documenta fifteen

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between contemporary artistic practices and archives. It investigates – through the lens of postcolonial studies and decolonial studies – how artistic creation contributes to reflections on knowledge and public memory construction from the grassroots. The analysis of this dense intertwining starts from the case of documenta fifteen – held in 2022 in Kassel, Germany – by retracing some of the exhibited projects, such as The Black Archives and Archives des luttes des femmes en Algérie exhibited in the Fridericianum Museum and Borrowed Faces and Frictional Conversation by Yasmine Eid Sabbagh presented in Hafenstrasse. These works, although situated in specific geographies and contexts, in their common instances make it possible to construe a critical discourse on the archival apparatus and at the same time they elaborate new proposals in the urgency of finding another way of dealing with the history of the oppressed, recovering traumatic memories, using the tools of narration, reactivating processes of subjectivation and recognition of marginalised communities.