Département des Arts de l'Islam, Salle 1, Objets d'Irak examines how the discourse of 'culture' was mobilized during the ransack of the Iraqi National Museum. During this period, international attention shifted to the question of culture and specifically how such a term was to be defined given the loss and destruction of the objects toward which history was said to refer. The title refers to the setting on which the video opens, an empty museum display in the Islamic Art section of the Louvre. Juxtaposed on top of this display are Images of War, a daily internet slideshow sponsored by the New York Times. The anachrony of contemporary photojournalism at the site of the display urges its spectators to contend with the Orientalist fabulation of a conception of 'culture' limited to the domain of archaic objects.
article on Women in Director's Chair Festival in Clamor
