Inward Outward
Inward Outward investigates the status of moving image and sound archives as they intertwine with questions of coloniality, identity and race, and seeks to bring theory and practice into dialogue by drawing together people from different professional and creative backgrounds. As a collaborative project Inward Outward does this by organizing symposia, publications, workshops and other events.
Inward Outward investigates the status of moving image and sound archives as they intertwine with questions of coloniality, identity and race, and seeks to bring theory and practice into dialogue by drawing together people from different professional and creative backgrounds. As a collaborative project Inward Outward does this by organizing symposia, publications, workshops and other events.
Archives, assumed to be containers of memory, are vested with a particular power to constitute and define who is and who is not included in history—that is his/her/their/our—stories. Inward Outward asks what approaches and interventions exist (or could be imagined) that question archival practices in an effort to “decolonize” the archive, and explores what “decolonizing” the archive—within and beyond the walls of established institutions—could offer for the production of new bodies of knowledge.
There is something specific to sound and moving images as they hold a particular type of textured representation that uniquely captures the visual and aural qualities of who or what is being recorded. Taking a critical archiving approach as its base, Inward Outward explores what is specific to moving image and sound materials, including both materials of the past and those created in the present, and the archival practices used to collect, preserve, and make them accessible.
Initiated between the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision, with special support from the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen’s Research Center for Material Culture (RCMC/NMvW), the first Inward Outward took place in January of 2020.
For full symposium and publication details, visit the Inward Outward website.
Inward Outward publications
On March 16 & 17, 2023, the third edition of the Inward Outward symposium took place in Amsterdam at Framer Framed. For this edition we focused on Witnessing/Care, with these two terms articulated in tandem and mobilised together, as complementary practices, calling to each other as tools to move through the archive, but that may also be wielded in tension. Across this publication 9 individual texts unfold, critically engaging with conversations on witnessing, care and repair in the archive.
In 2021 the second Inward Outward took place online between October 13-15th focusing on Emotion in the Archive. Where do we encounter emotions, affects and feelings in the archive? How are these captured in both sounds and moving images and in the practices used to organise the archive? And, most pressingly, how do these emotions inspire us to unlearn and undo the dominant imperial practices and discourses that have determined our work so far? This publication collects different contributions from the speakers of Inward Outward that reiterate and reflect on the presentations that took place during the symposium.
Inward Outward 2024
In March 2023, Inward Outward initiated a conversation on how concepts of witnessing and care engage with sound and moving image archives in the form of a two-day symposium. Rather than engage with a new theme in 2024, ongoing events of the previous year pressed us to return to these themes and conversations. In doing so, the Inward Outward team endeavoured to extend the threads sewn in 2023 to address the brutal escalation of long-held settler colonial projects as they redraw what witnessing, care and archival work might entail in 2024.
 |
 |
The approach to Inward Outward in 2024 took a different approach in order to revisit these themes. The programme featured an afternoon working session with James Parnell and an early evening conversation between scholar Tina Campt and filmmaker Mohanad Yaqubi followed by the launch of the last symposium’s edited collection. In conversation, Tina Campt and Mohanad Yaqubi, moderated by Alana Osbourne thought together on how film practices and sonic and visual archives resonate with cycles of colonial and racist violence, as well as the challenges we face as we witness, carefully archive, and resist their unfolding. What does it mean to be critical of colonial archives and their formation in a time when physical sites of memory — archives, universities, museums, monuments, and shrines — are actively and intentionally being destroyed by war? What are the ethics of archival knowledge-work intent on protecting past, present and future memory at this moment?
Inward Outward Past events
-
Witnessing/Care & the Archive (2023)
The third Inward Outward took place on March 16-17, 2023 at Framer Framed (Amsterdam) as a series of three lecture/conversation sessions and a workshop. This iteration of the symposium focused on Witnessing/Care, with these two terms articulated in tandem. We mobilised Witnessing/Care together, as complementary practices, calling to each other as tools to move through the archive, but that may also be wielded in tension.
-
Emotion in the Archive (2021)
The second Inward Outward took place online between October 15-17, 2021 focused on the theme Emotion in the Archive. The symposium featured a series of 3 panel sessions focused on Anger/Defiance, Shame & Guilt and Love & Compassion, offered a poignant keynote from professor, curator and filmmaker Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, and a workshop on Learning and Unlearning Archival Practices inspired by Azoulay's work.
-
Critical Archival Engagements with Films & Sounds of Coloniality (2020)
On the 24th and 25th of January 2020, the first edition of the Inward Outward symposium took place at the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision. This first iteratoin brought together archival practitioners, artists, academics, and researchers to explore the status of moving image and sound archives as they intertwine with questions of coloniality, identity and race.
Mailing List
Stay tuned for more information and sign up for our mailing list
 |
 |
 |