Performing Colonial Toxicity reist naar Zürich, Londen en Parijs

Performing Colonial Toxicity (2023). Foto: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Performing Colonial Toxicity reist naar Zürich, Londen en Parijs

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Framer Framed is excited to share that our exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity by Samia Henni and co-produced with If I Can’t Dance, travels to Zurich, London and Paris!

Performing Colonial Toxicity is an archival exhibition by architectural historian and curator Samia Henni, documenting France’s nuclear programme in Algeria during and after the Algerian Revolution (1954-62). Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara, whose natural resources were being extracted in the process. The Sahara region was contaminated with radioactive fallout, which subsequently spread across Algeria, North, Central and West Africa, and the Mediterranean, including Southern Europe. This has caused irreversible and ongoing contamination of living organisms, cells and particles, as well as the natural and built environments.

The exhibition presents available, offered, contraband and leaked materials from these archives in an immersive multimedia installation. It creates with them a series of audiovisual assemblages, which trace the spatial, atmospheric, and geological impacts of France’s atomic bombs in the Sahara, as well as its colonial vocabularies, and the (after)lives of its radioactive debris and nuclear waste. Performing Colonial Toxicity exhibition draws attention to the urgency of reckoning with this history and its lived environmental and sociopolitical impacts. More information of the project can be found in the exhibition companion guide

gta exhibitons, Zurich

The opening on 5 March features a guided tour with Samia Henni. From the 6 March to 2 April 2024, the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity is presented by gta exhibitions as part of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture at the university, ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

gta exhibitions presents the teaching and research of the Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) where Samia Henni is a visiting professor. She also received her Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture (with distinction, ETH Medal) from ETH Zurich.

The Mosaic Rooms, London

Between 21 March and 16 June 2024, Performing Colonial Toxicity is on show at The Mosaic Rooms in London, UK. The Mosaic Rooms is a non-profit arts organisation and bookshop dedicated to supporting and promoting contemporary culture from the Arab world and beyond.

The DOC association

Between 6 and 20 June 2025, Performing Colonial Toxicity is on show at DOC in Paris, France. The DOC was born from a project to offer production and exhibition spaces to contemporary artists. In 2018, nearly 95 residents found their place in the former Jean Quarré high school at 26 rue du docteur Potain in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

Performing Colonial Toxicity is a co-production of Framer Framed and If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution.

The project was supported by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Special thanks to the Observatoire des armements, Centre de documentation et de recherche sur la paix et les conflits; the Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD); and to filmmakers Élisabeth Leuvrey and Larbi Benchiha with producer Farid Rezkallah for use of images and film excerpts in the exhibition; as well as to Prof. Dr. Roxanne Panchasi, Simon Fraser University for her support for the Tamasheq-to-French translation of Algerian testimonies.

The exhibition at Framer Framed was part of the two-year research project Performing Colonial Toxicity, commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution within the frame of Edition IX – Bodies and Technologies (2022-23). If I Can’t Dance is financially supported by the Mondriaan Fund, AFK, Ammodo and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.