Curating Commonality: Multimodal Materialities of Intercommunal Northern African Heritage
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This paper delineates multimodal materialities of intercommunal curation. I center the case of curating commonality of northern African (Maghrebi) Judeo-Islamic encounters and interactions across generations through plural Maghrebi Jewish narratives, and in the changing shape of museum curation culture. Algeria is central to historiographies of French imperial pluralism and their post-imperial metropolitan reconfigurations. For context, I introduce two curatorial modes which showcased Maghrebi Jewish trajectories in Paris: the IMA (Institut du monde arabe, Arab World Institute) exhibition Juifs d’Orient (Jews from the Orient) and the Musée de l’histoire et des cultures de l’immigration (Museum for the History of Immigration) Juifs et musulmans de l’empire à l’hexagone (Jews and Muslims from empire to Hexagone/France) where I pay attention to the exhibitions’ impact as sites encounter and interaction. Then, as a counterpoint, as participant-observer I explore a 2023 grassroots festival for North African Jewish cultures which closed with a cemetery visit of great Jewish Algeria Andalusi musicians (singers and composers). These included Reinette l’Oranaise, whose biography, music, and contemporary reception I presented to an intergenerational audience. These co-constructed experiences chime with the development of multimodal practices connected to the curation of complex intergenerational historiographical narratives between digital film and cultural reception.
Source: Material Religion
Author: Samuel Sami Everett
Institutions: Aix-Marseille Université, University of Southampton
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Award: G6048120647
OpenAlex ID: W4405073249