Geographies of collaboration I

The Bandung conference, held in 1955 in Indonesia, which brought together twenty-nine countries and ex-colonies of the global South as well as numerous representatives of liberation movements, marked a far-reaching world-historical caesura during the end phase of colonialism. Influences and the exertion of influence can be traced only with difficulty.

Program: THU 03.10. | FRI 04.10. | SAT 05.10.2013

Derided by Europe as the “conference in the middle of nowhere” and notoriously underestimated in its collaborative effort and symbolic import, Bandung took seriously peoples’ right to self-determination in the proper sense and distanced itself from the bloc confrontation of the Cold War. It opposed all forms of colonialization and countered the racism of the Western hegemonic powers with the vision of a pluralistic world and anticolonial modern era. The conference gave rise to the later Non-Aligned Movement. To what extent did Bandung change the basic ideological and power-political conditions, and which of these conditions posed an insurmountable obstacle to the vision of collaboration among the global South?

Conference:

15h: James T. Hong, Shirin Rai
16h: Adekeye Adebajo, John Akomfrah
17.30h: Fred Moten
18h: Break
18.30h: “Travelling Communiqué. Reading a Photo Archive (1948–1980) Presidential Press Service, Yugoslavia”, Nabil Ahmed, The Otolith Group
20.30h: Discussion, drinks, music

Program: THU 03.10. | FRI 04.10. | SAT 05.10.2013