The term les indiennes was coined by the French colonial system at the beginning of the 17th century when techniques from the Coromandel coast in India were appropriated. They were then adapted for mass production for the European market (first in France then in Switzerland) and used as a bargaining chip during slavery and transatlantic trade, for example, with the Kingdom of Dahomey in today’s Benin, Ambriz in Angola or Roi Damel in today’s Senegal. The textiles coded a visual culture that could be understood as a Social Media of its time for categorizing the fictions of race, gender mythologies, fantasies of biology and geographical dreams that animated, and still animate today, the racial and gendered order of European imperialism.  

The exhibition’s objective is to join the planetary call for decolonizing practices in contemporary arts of the 21s​t century condition. 
With artists’ contributions, students’ voicings and conversations by Ramon Amaro, Maïté Chenière, Zasha Colah, Harun Farocki, Mathilde Gaugué, Alexander Gence, Léa Genoud, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Lauren Huret, JooYoung Hwang, Doreen Mende, Tabita Rezaire, Julie Robiolle, Laila Torres Mendieta, Noémi Michel, Clara Nissim, Françoise Vergès, Grant Watson, Fatima Wegmann.

Spatial-curatorial layout : Alexander Gence and Julie Robiolle  
Graphic Design (exhibition and leaflet): Cecilia Moya Rivera  
Installation support : Aurélien Martin, Paul Paillet 
Seminar group : Yasmeen Chaudry, Giacomo Galetti, Mathilde Gaugué, Alexander Gence, Doreen Mende, Clara Nissim, Julie Robiolle, Laila Torres Mendieta, Caspar Shaller, Chloe Sugden and Fatima Wegmann with further support from Román Alonso, Garance Bonard, Doriane Geneste-Loupiac, Emilie Moore, Lorelei Regamey, a.o. 

The research-exhibition The many voices of ​les indiennes​ has been conceptualized in the Curatorial Politics seminar conducted by Doreen Mende in the CCC Research-based Master at the Department of Visual Arts at HEAD between 2017 and 2019.