Kader Attia's talk will consist of two parts: first, the screening of a film showing a series of interviews that he realized on the question of the return of artifacts stolen from former colonized countries, and currently stored in western museums. "It is interesting for me to show this work in Switzerland, because even if the country did not possess any colonies, it still has gathered extensive ethnological collections, in Neuchâtel, Geneva, Zurich..." Then, from representation to action, this screening will be completed by a lecture about La Colonie’s activities, and more specifically a symposium on the issue of the return of African artifacts taking place there on the 12th of September: "It is very important for me to explain how La Colonie is an area to experiment in action the ethic I am trying to develop through this series of films, especially the one dealing with the return of objects: like the symposium we are preparing called “The collection of injuries” next September." The case of the return of the Greek antiquities, for which Greece has been fighting for over a century but more actively for decades also will be explored during this talk, as an example of the forms of crypto-colonialism implemented by Western countries, in particular after their colonies’ independences — because there is a political extension of collecting ethnographic artifacts and Greek archeology.

Kader Attia grew up in Paris and in Algeria, and lives today in Berlin, Paris and Algiers. Preceding his studies in Paris and Barcelona, he spent several years in Congo and in South America. Kader Attia’s intercultural and interdisciplinary approach of research explores the perspective societies have on their history, especially as regards experiences of deprivation and suppression, violence and loss, and their traces in collective memory. In 2016, Kader Attia founded La Colonie, a space in Paris providing an agora for discussing decolonialisation of knowledge, attitudes and practices to de-compartmentalise knowledge by a transcultural, transdisciplinary and transgenerational approach. Kader Attia’s comprehensive solo show „Roots also Grow in Concrete is currently on display at MacVal in Vitry-sur-Seine, after recent solo-exhibitions at the 57th Venice Biennial; Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts de Lausanne; Beirut Art Center; Whitechapel Gallery, London; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel. In 2016, Kader Attia was awarded with the Marcel Duchamp Prize, followed in 2017 by the Prize of the Miró Foundation, Barcelona, and the Yanghyun Art Prize, Seoul.

Navigating Turbulences (NT) names the Public Seminar, organized by the Research-Based CCC Master Program, one of three Masters of the Visual Arts Department at HEAD – Genève. In 2017/18, NT will engage with the question of ‘practice’ in relation to ‘research’: ‘Research’ in the arts today is a code-word to enter study programs, biennales, PhD-grants in the arts, museum-reforms, funding applications and makes students pay tuition fee. Let’s re-investigate the politics of ‘research’, therefore, through speaking about and making practices. We have in mind a network of practices that departs from life’s complexity. All sessions emerge from the CCC-Curriculum with its faculty members, guests and students. The NT follows the idea of ‘colloquium’: from literally “a speaking together”: from com- “together” + -loquium “speaking”. Under the condition of turbulence, it is knowledge that is in crisis which makes it necessary for us to think together, to think otherwise.

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