ONLINE TrAIN Open Lecture: Prof. Françoise Vergès

"What is the place and role of the museum, a Western invention, in the making of the nation-state, in the context of destruction and erasure and increased privatisation, budget cuts, climate disaster, and the rise of fascistic forces? Is it time to imagine something else that answers the desire for transmission and conservation, but considers the limits of the museum as it is: its problematic history, its hierarchies, its ways of transforming art that embodies the sacred, political power, or everyday life, into commodities?"

ABOUT FRANÇOISE VERGÈS

Françoise Vergès writes on the afterlife of slavery and colonisation, decolonial feminism, the museum, and climate disaster and regularly works with artists. She is currently working on a film about struggles in Reunion Island and her parents’ personal archives. In 2024, she was, along with sociologist Fabien Truong, a curator and writer of the first edition of La Ville Dansée in Paris. Françoise is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Sarah Parker Centre, UCL.

Image © Bayar Tayachi, 2024