A part of the memoir of our guest scholar Gina Athena Ulysse and her Open Gate in the Archives project – a posthumous visual conversation between the multimedia project, VooDooDoll, and the late German photographer Leonore Mau.
Read it here
Book Launch of A Year and A Day. Leonore Mau and Haiti / Un an et un jour. Leonore Mau et Haïti
On 16th December 1990: Jean-Bertrand Aristide is elected president with over 67% of the vote in the first democratic elections in Haiti’s history. 35 year later we warmly invite you to the 📚 book launch of A Year and A Day. Leonore Mau and Haiti / Un an et un jour. Leonore Mau et Haïti
The book is the outcome of the SNSF-research project Conflict and Cooperation, which was based at the chair of Prof. Dr. Bärbel Küster at the University of Zurich and will hopefully now find its way into many hands.
Edited by Dora Imhof, Gina Athena Ulysse, U5
Contributions by Yveline Alexis, Kyrah Malika Daniels, Nathalie David, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Hans Fässler, Sasha Huber, Zainabu Jallo, Erol Josué, Dora Imhof, Sabine Lamour, Kettly Mars, Christopher Nixon, Katherine Smith, Gina Athena Ulysse, U5
When? 📆 Tuesday, December 16, 2025, 6-8pm
Where? 🌬️Rooftop 8.C02, Wind Tunnel, ZHdK,Toni-Areal, Zurich (🧤The Wind Tunnel is not heated, so dress warmly.)
“OUT OF FOCUS” Exhibition Lenbachhaus, Munich
“OUT OF FOCUS”, Leonore Mau and Haiti, –
The upcoming exhibition at the Lenbachhaus is an artistic development of the research project “Out of Focus” by Dora Imhof and the artists’ collective U5 at the University of Zurich. Together with the cultural anthropologist and artist Gina Athena Ulysse, the artist and filmmaker Madafi Pierre, the houngan (priest), musician, and director general of the Bureau National d’Ethnologie in Port-au-Prince Erol Josué, and other scholars and artists, the exhibition develops a dialogical, critical, and productive approach to Mau’s images. The photographs will be shown at the Lenbachhaus in a multimedia, sensual environment. An essential component is an event program (during the exhibition period) in which the previous dialogues in and with the public are continued through performances and discussions. “Out of Focus” is a collaborative examination of Leonore Mau’s photographs taken in Haiti. The exhibition seeks a decolonial approach to these images and asks how working with this archive can contribute to changing the image of Haiti, which is still characterized by stereotypes today.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive four-language publication edited by Dora Imhof, Gina Athena Ulysse, and U5, published by Hatje Cantz.
Cooperation partners: S. Fischer Foundation, bpk-Bildagentur, Berlin
With generous support of Förderverein Lenbachhaus e.V.
Relationalities and the Ethics of Viewing
Zainabu Jallo & Berit Seidel: Relationalities and the Ethics of Viewing
Universität Zürich, ISEK – Populäre Kulturen (20.Nov. 2024)
In their talk, they will provide insights into their research project Out of Focus, in which they investigate the previously unpublished photographs taken in Haiti in the 1970s by Leonore Mau. Her pictures not only provide new insights and “potential histories” (Azoulay), they also pose a variety of ethical challenges. In dialog with people and institutions from Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, the process-oriented project searches for forms of dealing with Mau’s photographs that include not only artistic and art-historical research but also the structural and institutional level.
Launch “kritische berichte”
The new issue of the magazine “kritische berichte” is dedicated to visual justice. We’re very happy to be part of this issue which is edited by Christopher Nixon. In our text (in German) we present our work with the photographs of Leonore Mau. The launch of the magazine is on June 17, 6 pm 2024 (online).
You can read the text here:
Ein Schatz, eine Last, eine Chance Was tun mit Leonore Maus Haiti-Fotografien?
Pèlerinage Toussaint Louverture au Fort de Joux
On April 7 we joined the pilgrimage to Château de Joux which takes place every year to commemorate the death of Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture. The castle where Louverture was imprisioned by Napoleon Bonaparte is located right at the French-Swiss border. The Swiss historian Hans Fässler who co-founded the pilgrimage in 2002 maintains an excellent website where he writes:
“This traditional annual gathering on April 7 is a civic initiative in line with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Revolution of August 23, 1791 in Saint Domingue, requiring a genuine duty of remembrance, the right to history and the rehabilitation of General Toussaint Louverture who, through his fight for the triumph of the values of Liberty, Citizenship and Fraternity, embodies and universalizes Human Dignity.”
Vodun jenseits von Hollywood – podcast from Birgit Meyer
A very interesting podcast about religion and spirituality initiated by the Department of Religious Studies of the University of Zurich features a conversation (in German) with the cultural anthropologist Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University), who moderated a panel in our workshop “Methods and Media of the Absent/Present. Visual Approaches to Vodun and Vodou.” Link to the podcast
Diapositives by Madafi Pierre
Filmscreening: Diapositives by Madafi Pierre
6:30 pm, December 11, 2023
Studio of U5, Flüelastrasse 6, 8048 Zürich
In her film Diapositives, the artist and filmmaker Madafi Pierre portrays five people of Haitian origin living in Switzerland. Pierre takes a global look at Haiti and Switzerland and asks what the connections between these two counties are and what life in Switzerland is like from a Haitian perspective. Diapositives addresses questions of planned and unplanned mobility, migration as well as of belonging and feelings of home, which cannot (necessarily) be tied to territories.
With KRIK KRAK Pierre uses a mode of storytelling in the form of call-and-response that is rooted in Haitian culture. Since Haiti is the country of the first Black revolution starting in 1791, the film at the same time involves a conversation about the way we think about historiography, colonization, and the possibilities of decolonizing knowledge production.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A. Over drinks, finger food, and music there will be the opportunity to continue the discussion informally.
The screening is organized by Bettina Gräf and Rebecca Sauer (Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich) and Dora Imhof and U5 (SNSF research project “Conflict and Cooperation”, Institute of Art History, University of Zurich).
VAD Conference: Afrika-Europe: Reciprocal Perspectives.
We will participate at the VAD conference (Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland) with this years headline: Afrika-Europe: Reciprocal Perspectives. https://nomadit.co.uk/vad/vad2022/ Albert University Breisgau 7-10. June 2022
On Wednesday 8 June, 16:00-17:30 (UTC+2) we will talk about Artistic Freedom and Responsibility Today and share Some Questions We Ask Ourselves.
The privat live of a cat
Maya Deren kept cats and named them after vodou gods and many of these cats hated each other. Ghede and Erzulie had the run of the house and the others had to be locked up in rooms and behind fences. (from: The Legend of Maya Deren, A Documentary Biography and Collected Works, Volume + Part Two, Chambers (1942-47), Veve Clark, Millicent Hudson, Anthology Film Archives (Eds.), 1988)
The Private Life Of A Cat is a film by Alexander Hammid and Maya Deren. It shows a day in the life of a cat, filmed from a cat’s-eye view. This film was circulated in two versions: a silent version without narration and a longer sound version with a narration read by Maya Deren (1949) this version has the following prolog:
„This film is dedicated to cats. Not in grateful recognition of services rendered, for they neither lend themselves to our sport, nor provide us with material benefits, nor (..) master, they live in friendly, independent equitable peace with man. For this rare talent, which man himself labors to achieve, we pay them homage.“