‘YOUth day #3: Telling and teaching colonial history in postcolonial times’

As part of the Next Generation, Please! exhibition, this round table presents the monumental installation by students at Athénée Léonie de Waha High School in Liège, in collaboration with British artist Bruce Clarke. The project focuses on Rwanda’s modern history and the country’s post-genocide process of remembrance. The round table aims to prompt reflection about the effects of post colonialism on art, and on how the country’s colonial history is taught, with a particular focus on secondary school programmes and sources of information. Several experts and actors on the ground will share their visions, beliefs and experiences: a combination of individual, artistic, educational and institutional perspectives.

Sarra Mouny has been teaching history, geography, and environmental studies since 2015, and currently works in two secondary schools in Charleroi. She arrived in Belgium in 2006, and is also active in anti-racist, environmental, feminist and human rights movements. She has adopted Nelson Mandela’s declaration as her motto: “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”
  
Romain Landmeters, FNRS-FRESH doctoral student in contemporary history and visiting professor at the Université Saint-Louis - Brussels. He is currently conducting a doctoral research project entitled Black minds within Belgian (de-)colonisation and discrimination. Burundian, Congolese and Rwandese cultural elites in Belgium (1945-1975). In parallel to his primary research, Romain Landmeters is interested in the teaching of Belgian colonial history in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.

Artist and photographer Bruce Clarke was born in London in 1959 to South African parents, exiled because of their anti-apartheid political activity. Having studied Fine Art at the University of Leeds, he moved to Paris, which became a base for his creative work and reflection on the world. His work deals with contemporary history, and deconstructs modes of thought and representations of society in order to prompt us to think about today’s world.

Moderator: Ayoko Mensah is a cultural expert and artistic organiser. She has been working for the Centre for Fine Arts (Bozar) in Brussels since 2016. She concurrently carries out missions for several international organisations and cultural institutions. Of Togolese and French origin, Ayoko Mensah graduated in cultural management, literature and journalism in France.