Performing Colonial Toxicity travels to Zurich and London

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

Performing Colonial Toxicity is an archival exhibition 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.

gta exhibitons, Zurich

From the 6 March to 2 April 2024, Performing Colonial Toxicity will be 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 opening on 5 March features a guided tour with Samia Henni.

The Mosaic Rooms, London

Between 21 March and 16 June 2024, Performing Colonial Toxicity is also 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.

If you visit any of these new iterations, tag us on Instagram with @framerframed and share your experience!

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.