Postcolonial Hauntologies: Art in the Presence – Absence of the Past is an international symposium held jointly at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Concordia University (Canada). It aims to establish cross-cultural solidarities and foster transdisciplinary dialogues, including voices from diverse regions that address colonial legacies. It focuses on art as a medium to aesthetically transform spectral traces, while exploring the decolonial potential of institutional sites, such as archives and museums.

Marked by the publication of Derrida’s Specters of Marx in 1994, the spectral turn saw the spectre as a conceptual signifier of the “invisible visible” or not-fully-realised presence that claims space (Derrida: 1996; Peeren, Pilar Blanco: 2013). The spectre can signify a form of traumatic presence that continues to haunt individuals and societies that have not confronted their troubled pasts. For example, Nicholas Abraham's term “phantom” is linked to the transgenerational transmission of shame and guilt. In a broader sense, legacies of violence can persist in affected societies, manifesting in various forms and carrying the threat of re-emergence. In postcolonial contexts, the haunting legacies may include traumas resulting from centuries of racial othering or the delayed consequences of environmental violence.

Art plays a crucial role in addressing colonial legacies by offering a space for reflection, reconnection, and resistance. Contemporary artists explore the potentialities of their media – indexical, performative, or time-based while touching upon traces and resonances of past and ongoing violence. Museums and institutions face the challenge of dealing with ruptures and continuity within postcolonial structures.

This three-day symposium brings together artists, art historians, curators, and early-career researchers to discuss the following questions: What role does art play in addressing difficult pasts? How do artists use their media to make the invisible visible and actualize traces of trauma? What kinds of temporalities do they create when engaging with haunting legacies? In what ways can museums challenge and transform postcolonial legacies? How do artistic and curatorial methods address the absence in archives and reimagine archive and archival practices? How can engaging with postcolonial hauntologies help us build cross-border solidarities?

Schedule:

Day 1: University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam) – 5 March 2025

Day 2: Concordia University (Montreal) – 7 March 2025

Day3: online (Zoom) – 8 March 2025

Event organisers:

Assel Kadyrkhanova — visual artist, researcher and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam.

Mehmet Berkay Sulek— PhD Candidate in Art History at the University of Amsterdam.

Alexandra Tsay— curator and researcher, currently a PhD student in Art History department at Concordia University.

The Amsterdam event is supported by Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis, and Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. It is realised as part of the Artistic Research Research Group (ARRG).

Registration link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfh-DscLOkY0OrcgQa-sna33Lh6B7PppOKAazZeANBtTyl-TQ/viewform?usp=header  

Programme

Day 1: University of Amsterdam

Date: 5 March 2025 | Venue: Doelenzaal, University Library Singel | Time zone: CET

9:30 - 10:00 Arrival and registration

10:00  Welcome note

10:15 – 11:45 Session 1: Sensing Otherwise: Decolonial Aesthetics Beyond Vision

1. Spectral and Ancestral Alliances Against the Perpetual Reemergence of Colonial Extractive Violence, Juliana Robles de la Pava (Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study, Germany)
2. Your Ears Later will Know to Listen, Andrea Zarza Canova (Nottingham University, UK)
3. The Notion of Sensing in Contemporary Art, Deiara Kouto (KNUST University and Leuphana University, Ghana / Germany).
4. Water is Coming: Hauntings of Colonialism and Environmental Catastrophe Caroline Spitzner (Radboud University, NL)

12.00 – 13.30 Session 2:  The Politics of Vision: Justice and Reparation

1. Visual Justice and the Haunting of Past, Present, and Future, Christopher Nixon (Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences, Germany);
2. Lebanese Martyrs as Specters, Agnes Rameder (Hamburger Bahnhof, Germany);
3. Postcolonial Hauntologies: Lumumba’s Specters in Cinema, Matthias de Groof (University of Antwerp, University of Amsterdam, BE/ NL);
4. Ancestral Heritage and Reparative Art in Estefanía García Pineda's Tierra, Conejos y Orígenes, Maria Suarez Caicedo (University of Amsterdam, NL).

13.30 – 14.15  Lunch break

14.15 – 15.30  Keynote – Sanjukta Sunderason.
Moderated by Colin Sterling

15.45 – 16.45  Roundtable: Curating Haunting Legacies With: Mariam Elnozahy, Lara Khaldi and Nav Haq | Moderators: Mehmet Berkay Sülek and  Liang-Kai Yu

17.00 – 18.20  Film screenings:

1. All the Dreams We Dream — Assel Kadyrkhanova (University of Amsterdam, Kazakhstan /NL): short presentation + screening. (21 min)
2. Projecting Spectres —  Caroline Deodat (artist, filmmaker FR/MR/ BE) and Steyn Bergs (Utrecht University, NL): presentation (20 min) + screening (21 min)
   Moderated by Florian Göttke

18.20 –  Closing remarks

Day 2: Concordia University

Date: March 7th

Venue: Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, EV1.605 for the film screening

Time zone EST

10:00 – 10:10 Welcome note

10:10 – 11:45 Session 1: Epistemic Disruptions and Postcolonial Archive

1. Reckoning with the Terrible Beauty of the Archive, Ingrid Jones, PhD student, University of Toronto
2. The conceptual deployment of the archive in the research-driven praxes of contemporary Maghrebi (working title), Dr. Nancy Demerdash, Associate Professor, College for Creative Studies
3. The Spectre of Crochet: A Woman’s Lived Experience, Pragya Sharma, PhD Student, University of Brighton (online)
4. Hauntology in Gê Viana’s Afro-Indigenous re-imaginations, Rodrigo D'Alcântara, PhD candidate, Concordia University

11:45 – 12:00 Coffee break

 12:00 – 13:30 Session 2: After Violence: Bodies, Memory, and Haunted Spaces

1. The Legacy of Violence: Apartheid Monsters and Post-Apartheid Mimicry in the Work of Contemporary South African Artist Jane Alexander, Dr. Amy Nygaard, Assistant Professor, University of Saint Thomas
2. The Bodies that Haunt the Colonial Institute: Human remains in and through Dutch museal space, Dr Pansee Abou ElAtta, Postdoctoral Researcher, Carleton University
3. Nomadic poetic tracings, or how ghostly figures can emerge, Florencia Marchetti, PhD candidate, Concordia University
4. (Con)Strained Utopias: Hauntings in the Activist-Workplace, Richenda Grazette, MA in Interdisciplinary Studies, Concordia University

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch break

14: 30 – 16:30 Session 3: Screenings

1. druzhba narodov (25 min), film by Intizor Otaniyazova, artist based in Almaty, Kazakhstan
2. The Landmarks of Memory (6:40 min) + short presentation and a Q&A moderated by Manar Abo Touk  (20 min), Christina Hajjar, artist
3. Baigal Nuur - Lake Baikal (9 min), Nutag - Homeland (6 min), The Fourfold (7:14 min), filmmaker Alisi Telengut in conversation with Dr. Alice Jim

16:30-16:35 Closing remarks

____________________________________________________________________

Day 3: Online

Date: 8 March 2025 | Place: Zoom | Schedule (Time zones:  CET |  EST)

15.00 – 15.10 (9:00 - 9:10 EST) Opening Remarks

1. 1. – 16.40 (9:00 - 10:40 EST) Session 1: Post-/ Decolonial Aesthetics

1. Resurgent Waters: Liquid Postcolonial Hauntologies for Decolonizing the Neerlandophone Space, Julee al Bayaty de Ridder (University of Amsterdam, NL)

2. Title TBC, Fabienne Rachmadiev (University of Amsterdam, NL)

3. Fibula-Image, or Affects of Becoming-Steppe. Eurasian Nomadism and a Preposterous History of Polish Contemporary Art, Radek Przedpełski (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

4. Beyond Vision: Reframing Haptic as Decolonial Curatorial Strategy in South Asian Colonial Archives, Tony P. Jacob, artist (India)

16.40 – 16.50 Break

16.50 – 18.20 (10:50 - 12:20 EST) Session 2: Haunted Museums, Alternative Archives

1. From Greenland to Bergen: Retracing a Forgotten Colonial History, Tuva Mossin, Ph.D. Candidate (University of Bergen, Norway)

2. Imagining Ürkün memory museum, Asel Rashidova (Erasmus Mundus MA: University of Glasgow, University of Tartu, Radboud University, UK/ NL / Estonia / Kyrgyzstan)

3. Talking Images: Photography as a Tool of Decolonization? Emeka Ogboh’s Work “At the Threshold” (2021), Winona Pawelzik, Research Assistant (University of Hamburg, Germany)

4. Other Archives, Denis Esakov, independent artist decolonialanguage (Germany)

18.30 – 19.30 (12.30 – 13.30 EST) Film Screening: An Asian Ghost Story

(screening 37 min. + Q&A).  Bo Wang (Artist, filmmaker, University of Amsterdam, NL)

19.30 – 19.40 (13:30 - 13:40 EST) Closing remarks