A renewed anthropology of images.

Representing exile around the Mediterranean sea since 2000

Those who did not cross, 2005-2015, Levi Westerveld, geographer

Let's reset the clock, flm, Elsa Gomis, 2014

The doctoral thesis that I wish to complete within the cluster Culture, Practise and Aesthetics of the
Geography Department of the University of Sheffeld deals with the representation of exile, in particular
regarding the Mediterranean Sea as a place of transit for forced migrations to Europe. Considering in particular
post-colonial experiences, my research project would examines exile as a prolonged separation from one's
country by force of circumstances and not as a summary of the act of displacement. Representation would be
regarded as a political process from the viewpoint of aesthetic and political science.
By developing a phenomenology of exile as a state of a mind and a way of being in the world, I will draw my
research on a corpus composed together with contemporary directors and visual artists, and question it as a
specifc spacial perception of the territories. Its aim is to show how those mental images lead to a renewed
anthropology of images, questioning the notion of border: the border between fctitious and documentary
images and the border between countries. The exile across the Mediterranean would then be explored from
the notions of memory, colonisation, borders and cartography.
More than 60 million people left their countries in 2015. How will these populations, of which 50 percent are
children, represent their country of origin? How are directors, artists and journalists seizing the memory of
these departures?
Using the notion of metapicture as by Mitchell I would consider images as migrants i and explore his assumption
which links the destruction of images to the production of displaced people somewhere else within the world.
As Mezzadra and Neilson have pointed out, “the world has become more open to fows of capital and
commodities but more closed to the circulation of human bodies.” iiFor others, this movement is powered by a
dual irresistible movement of impregnation and resistance to the world. Ferran embodies this tension with her
flm Bird Peopleiii which premise is the lack of separation between the world and our individualities and reminds
us that our bodies contain the fngerprints of the collective contexts in which they operate. This body
considered as a support is for Deleuze that which “carries the peaks of deterritorialisation” iv.

Subject to myths since Homer's Odyssey, the idyllic image of the Mediterranean will be shown as a painful
screen behind which there is a need to redefne the legal framework designating these migrations as “illegal”. If
the identity of a people is founded by the country which gave them birth, for the exiles this could be built as a
palimpsest born of the successive impregnation of the crossed countries. Thus the representation of the
homeland would be a relevant way of understanding our conceptions of the territory.
Considering that political fctions refect our aesthetic representations as echoes, I wish to explore how the
colonial imaginary world might still exist today in the way borders are pictured in cartographies as impervious
as the drawing lines which defned them on the maps. For example, how could European colonisation be
considered as setting an imperialist fction in Africa in which the Mediterranean could be the place of transition
leading settlers to reality?

My research starts from the premise that the formal distinction between documentary and fctitious images is
outdated. The practices of directors and visual artists such as Jalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas, Miguel Gomes
or Zineb Sedira will be more specifcally analysed. From there, the practical tools of the images, such as the flm
set or the storytelling, would be used as an evaluation grid to seize the policies toward the Mediterranean area.
I will meet with Aline Caillet to learn how cinematic documentary escapes from its relation to reality to
become an hybrid form. The works of Tom Conley and Teresa Castro concerning the cartographic thought of
images will be examined to see whether the act of mapping could infuence cinema itself and vice versa. I will
also investigate how reality could be fctionalized to be thought studying specifc works of Jacques Rancière and
Marie-José Mondzain.

I want to pursue a PhD within this cluster because from what I have read and experienced, it seems to be at
the forefront in areas such as Cultural Geography, exile, displacement, migration and postcolonial theory. In
particular, my research project could fnd an ideal ground for development under the direction of Dr. Dubow.
Because of her background in art history and due to her commitment in the former AHRC Speculative Grant
Archive of Exile, this project would greatly beneft from her expertise. Working under her supervision, I would
like to bring a practical resonance to my work by continuing my artistic practice.
I have written two forthcoming articles about this topic and plan to submit papers to academic journals.

Areas of research Submission of proposals

Oct. 2017 – Establishing an interview grid for the interview to Publication of the interview of H-F.
Feb. 2018 explore aesthetic effects of being exiled. Imbert (done during the Master)
Interview with Noit Banai and Hamid Nafcy
Attending the colloquium
March 2018 - Establishing the contribution of images of exile to Preparation an article for Progress
June the renewal of an anthropology of images in Human Geography
2018 Interview with Aline Caillet, Marie-Josée
Mondzain and Emmanuel Alloa
July 2018 - Determining and organising the detailed plan Creation of an observatory of the
Sept. 2018 Reinvest and drawing up the publications, the images of exile
study days and interviews into the chapters of the
plan
Sept. 2018 - Archives consultation of the exhibitions: Setting of a study day about the
May 2019 Splitting continents, CRAC, Sète cartographic thought of the images
Made in Algeria, genealogy of a territory, MuCEM, (Castro, Conley)
Marseille Means of interventions
Between Myth and Fright. The Mediterranean as Seeking of partners and fundings
confict, Valencia Institute of Modern Art
May 2019- Drafting of the introduction and the conclusion
Aug. 2019 Keywords index
End of detailed drafting
Aug. 2 0 1 9 - Formatting of the text
Oct. 2 0 1 9 Proofreading of the thesis

I believe that my former studies in law and my work experience as a Senior Manager provide me with a useful
insight regarding issues of migration which affects in particular the constitutional settlement of the states. My
earlier career has also given me in-depth experience of working in a project-oriented context, which I fnd
valuable when conducting research. I also taught visual arts at two primary schools in Paris and I am looking
forward to teaching as a part of my PhD position if there are such opportunities. Apart from the reward of
helping someone to understand a material, I have experienced that it helps my own understanding of cinematic
material to approach a topic from different angles, to fnd one that is suitable for the person I am explaining to.
Bibliography of planned reading

Articles
DUBOW Jessica
“Archive of Exile, Introduction”, Parallax 19:4, pp.1-5, 2013

HORNSTI Karina
Remains of Rescue and Confnement: Humanitarian Bordering in Lampedusa . Available at:
https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups /centre-criminology/centreborder-
criminologies/blog/2015/09/remains-rescue (Accessed [09/28/2016])

JOLY Patrice
Are we all migrants ?, "Zérodeux", March 23rd, 2016

McGONAGLE Joseph
Travelling in Circles: Postcolonial Algiers in Zineb Sedira's Saphir, L'Esprit Créateur review Vol. 51, n°1, Spring 2011

POTTE-BONNEVILLE Mathieu and ZAOUI Pierre interview with Georges DIDI-HUBERMAN

S'inquiéter devant chaque image, Vacarme review n°37, October, 11, 2006

Works
AGAMBEN Giorgio
Qu'est-ce qu'un dispositif? (What is a dispositive?), Payot, Paris, 2007

ALLOA Emmanuel
Penser l'image. Les Presses du Réel, Paris, 2011

BELTING Hans
An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2011

BAUSSANT Michèle
Pieds-noirs, mémoires d'exils, Paris, Stock, 2002

BOURDIEU Pierre
Images d'Algérie, une affnité élective, book by Franz Schultheis and Christine Frisinghelli, Arles, Actes Sud, 2003

CAILLET Aline
Dispositifs critiques. Le documentaire du cinéma aux arts visuels, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014

CASTRO Teresa
La Pensée cartographique des images. Cinéma et culture visuelle, Aléas, Lyon, 2011

CONLEY Tom
Cartographic Cinema, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2007

DANIELS Stefen, DE LYSER Dydia, ENTRIKIN J. Nicholas, RICHARDSON Douglas (eds.)

Envisioning Landscapes, Making Worlds: Geography and the Humanities, London, Routledge, 2011

DELEUZE Gilles et GUATTARI Félix

Mille Plateaux, "Capitalisme et schizophrénie", Paris, Minuit, 2009

DIDI-HUBERMAN Georges
Peuples en larmes, peuples en armes, Paris, Minuit, 2016

DERRIDA Jacques
Le monolinguisme de l'autre ou la prothèse d'origine (Monolingualism of the Other or, The Prosthesis of Origin),
Galilée, Paris, 1996
GONSETH Marc-Olivier, HAINARD Jacques and KAERH Roland
Derrière les images (Behind the pictures). Ethnography Museum, Neuchâtel, 2000

LAGEIRA Jacinto
De la déréalisation du monde. Réalité et fction en confit, Actes Sud, Arles, 2011

MAALOUF Amin
Les identités meurtrières, (In the Name of Identity), Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 1998

MANNIK Lynda
Migration by boat. Discourses of Trauma, Exclusion and Survival, New York, Berghahn Books, 2016

MONDZAIN Marie-José
Images à suivre. De la poursuite au cinéma et ailleurs, (Images, to be continued. The pursuit in cinema and
elsewhere), Montrouge, Bayard, 2011

NAFICY Hamid
An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton, N.J. : University Press, 2001

RANCIÈRE Jacques
La politique de l'autre, (The Cause of the Other), Hazan, Paris, 1997

Aisthesis, Scènes du régime esthétique de l'art, La Fabrique, Paris, 2011

SCOTT Emily Eliza and SWENSON Kirsten

Critical Landscapes. Art, Space, Politics, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2015

STEGMANN Petra and SEEL Peter C. (eds)

Migrating images: producing - reading - transporting – translating, House of World Cultures, Berlin, 2004

Writings of artists, writtings about artists

CAMUS Albert
CAMUS Albert
Le premier homme, (The First Man), Paris Gallimard, 1994

CIXOUS Hélène
CALLE-GRUBER Mireille and CIXOUS Hélène
Hélène Cixous, photos de racines, Édition des femmes, 1994

CIXOUS Hélène
Les rêveries de la femmes sauvage. Scènes primitives. (Dreamings of the Wild woman: primitives scenes). Paris,
Galilée, 2000

GOMES Miguel
REGNIER Isabelle
Miguel Gomes : Entre l'Afrique réelle et une Afrique de cinéma, Le Monde, 4 décembre 2012

Au pied du mont Tabou : le cinéma de Miguel Gomes, interviews with Cyril Neyrat, Paris, Independencia, 2012

HADJITHOMAS Joana et JOREIGE Jalil

Le cinéma de Joana Hadjithomas et Khalil Joreige, interviews with Quentin Mével, Paris, Independencia, 2013

IMBERT Henri-François
IMBERT Henri-François
Le temps des images, dir. Jean-Philippe Trias, followed by Le temps des amoureuses, carnets de travail, Paris,
Cinergon, 2015
KHALILI Bouchra
KHALILI Bouchra
Story Mapping, Bureau des Compétences et des Désirs, Marseille, 2010

SEDIRA Zineb
OBRIST Hans Ulrich
Zineb Sedira. Beneath The Surface, Kamel Mennour, Paris, 2012
Zineb and Richard DYER SEDIRA
Zineb Sedira, Saphir, The Photographer's Gallery/Kamel Mennour and Paris Musees, London and Paris, 2006

MARKER Chris
LAMBERT Arnaud
Also know as Chris Marker, Cherbourg-Octeville, Le Point du jour, 2008

Made in Algeria. Généalogie d’un territoire. Zahia Rahmani et Jean-Yves Sarazin (dir), catalogue of the exhibition,
coedition Hazan, MuCEM, 2016

PEREC Georges
PEREC Georges
Espèces d'espaces. (Species of Spaces and Other Pieces), Galilée, Paris, 2000

Selective flmography
Belinchón Sergio, Avalancha, 16 mm transferred to DVD, 3 screens projection, 7'04 min looped, 2008

Bluemel James, Exode, color flm, 90 min., Coprod. BBC, KEO Films, CANAL+, 2016

Ferran, Pascale, Bird People, color flm, 2 h 6 min, Prod. Archipel 35, 2014

Gomes, Miguel, Tabu, black and white and color flm, 118 min, O Som e a Fúria Prod., 2012

Joana Hadjithomas et Khalil Joreige, Je veux voir (I want to see), color flm, 75 mn, Prod. Mille et une productions,
2008

Imbert, Henri-François, No Pasaràn, album souvenir, color flm, 70 min., Libre Cours Prod., 2003

Bouchra, Khalili, Mapping Journey Project, eight-channel video (color, sound), 2008-2011

Rosi, Gianfranco, Fuocoammare, color flm, 1h 54min, Stemal Entertainment, 2016

Sedira, Zineb, Les terres de mon père, Two screens video installation with sound, Part 1: projection 6 min.
Part 2: monitor 8 min., 2016
i W.J.T. Mitchell, Migrating images. Totemism, Fetishism, Idolatry in Migrating images: producing - reading - transporting –
translating, Petra Stegmann and Peter C. Seel (eds), House of World Cultures, Berlin, 2004, p. 16
ii Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson, Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor, European Institute for Progressive
Cultural Policies: http://eipcp.net/transversal/0608/mezzadraneilson/en
iii Pascale Ferran, Bird People, color flm, 2h6 min, Archipel 35 Prod., 2014
iv Personal translation, Letter from Gilles Deleuze to Michel Foucault of 1977, published in Le magazine littéraire,
n°325, October 1994