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Images07


Images of African anti-colonial struggles during the Cold War 
Convenors:
Daria Zelenova (Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences)
Daria Turianitsa (Institute for African Studies)
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Format:
Panel
Stream:
Images of the living and dead
Location:
Virtual+Room 1221
Sessions:
Friday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin

Short Abstract:

At this panel we would like to discuss how anti-colonial image production developed during the Cold War period, what kinds of visual narratives were created, and how the anti-colonial struggle was viewed by different actors (both state and non-state) in the USSR and the socialist world.

Long Abstract:

The crucial 1960s phase of decolonization coincided with the global tensions of the Cold War, providing many African actors with the opportunity to travel to Socialist Bloc countries and meet their supporters in person. Images of these Third World Solidarities appeared in propaganda posters, cartoons in printed periodicals, films, and smaller and less official visual art objects, such as the wall newspapers and drawings of schoolchildren. In the USSR as well as in the so-called 'countries of socialist orientation', hundreds of propaganda leaflets and posters depicted the socialist world's internationalist solidarity with the anti-imperialist struggle. Whether shaped by the artists' own perceptions of colonialism and anti-colonialism, and their views of the oppressed and the liberated, these images became part of their anti-colonial narratives.

This panel invites contributions that look particularly into the ways Soviet and other Socialist orientated artists and filmmakers represented the African anti-colonial struggles (including films, photography, cartoons and posters), and seeks to explore what visual narratives were produced during the Cold War period. To what extent were these images shaped by Africans coming to visit, study and train in socialist countries and the USSR? Were African comrades part of this image creation? We are interested in contributions that could reflect on questions of mutual anti-colonial art and the complexities of visual production during the Cold War.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Friday 10 June, 2022, -