Conversations on visual memory

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/The oral, written, and visual testimonies, as well as all of the material collected for the Project, will be deposited at the Historical Archives of the European Union, European University Institute (EUI), Florence, and will, in compliance with the privacy regulations, be made publicly accessible. Thanks are due to Dieter Schlenker, the director of the Archives, for his acceptance of this fund (see the Appendix of this book for details about the material). Each of the interviewees signed a release form giving us permission to make their interviews and visual material, as well as the transcripts of their testimonies, accessible. They all received a copy of their release forms after being informed of their rights as research participants. Some requested a pseudonym (in this case, only their first names are used in the book), or complete anonymity is maintained. Gustavo Zagrebelsky, the Project’s ethical advisor provided useful advice on the ethical and juridical implications of the research project.Conversations on Visual Memory is the final product of the research conducted by Luisa Passerini as Principal Investigator of the European Research Council Project “Bodies Across Borders: Oral and Visual Memory in Europe and Beyond” (BABE). In this book, Passerini broadens the scope of her longstanding engagement with memory, extending it from orality to visuality. The book brings together Passerini’s dialogues with experts in the fields of memory and visuality; “maps” drawn and presented by mobile individuals interviewed in the course of the BABE fieldwork; and art that thematically centers on migration toward and across Europe. In the first chapter of Part 1, Passerini evokes her conversations with the cognitive psychologist, Jerry Bruner (1915–2016. These exchanges enable the author’s envisioning of the “maps” drawn by three individuals who migrated to Italy from Egypt, Albania, and Peru, respectively (chapter 2). The maps shed light on and are simultaneously illuminated by the author’s recollections of conversations she had with two other friends: the philosopher of aesthetics, Gianni Carchia (1947–2000) and the anthropologist, Jack Goody (1919–2015) on the relationship between the written and the oral. These latter conversations are interspersed with presentations of “maps” by individuals from Moldova, Pakistan, Romania, and Morocco (chapter 3). Part 2 is an exploration of two fields of knowledge that are evolving along different lines: art on the theme of migration, on the one hand, and documentation (oral, visual, and written) collected from mobile individuals whose trajectories are directed to and through Europe, on the other. Visual works by Eva Leitolf; Victor López González; Ursula Biemann and Bouchra Khalili are set in dialogue with “maps” drawn by interviewees from Peru, Syria, Nigeria, Moldova, Ecuador, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and Ukraine. The book concludes with a discussion in a graduate class that Passerini directed in oral history, which highlights the importance of art for teaching and researching in this field.Bodies Across Borders: Oral and Visual Memory in Europe and Beyond (BABE) Project received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013) / ERC Grant Agreement no. 29585. In the years 2013–2018, the Project was based at the EUI’s Department of History, BABE team.- Acknowledgements - Prologue -- Part One: Distant Voices, Present Lives - Chapter 1. Acts of Mapping: Jerry Bruner - Chapter 2. Remote Pasts, Possible Worlds: Magdy Youssef; Blerina Cuni; Antony - Chapter 3. Signs, Sounds, and Skills: Mihail Tirdea; Irina Stan; Ali Arush; Stefan Alexandru Mihai; Florina Claudia Negut; and Alina Gabriela Bolog. Gianni Carchia. Jack Goody. Youssef Boukkouss; Tarik El Amiri -- Part Two: Dialogues Between Images - Chapter 4. Figurative Borders of Europe: Eva Leitolf. Leonardo Puris; Mohamed. Ai Weiwei - Victor López González. Henry Moses; Maricica Anasie; Ludmila Dmitriev - Chapter 5. Reverberations and Critical Distances in Mobility Research: Ursula Biemann. Luz Fabiola Sanmaniego Jimenez; Hanane Radouane; Angelica Judith Canchi Cornejo - Chapter 6. Keywords for Shared Memories: Bouchra Khalili. Jean-Willy Mundele-Makusu; Abdou Cissé; Laila Mountassir; Iryna Prokaza - Appendix. Interviewees' Places of Origin and Arrival - Index of Name