Sunday, 16 March 2025, 11–05.30 pm

On March 16th, as part of the International Week Against Racism in Bern, we are delighted to bring acclaimed feminist writer, political scientist, activist, historian, film writer, and public educator Françoise Vergès to Bern. Vergès is the author of A Decolonial Feminism (2019), A Feminist History of Violence (2020) and A Programme of Absolute Disorder (2024) and a research fellow at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, University College London. The program departs from her recent book A Programme of Absolute Disorder and focuses on racism, migration, and integration and will take place at Kunsthalle Bern on the 16th of March 2025, Sunday between 11.00-17.30.
She opens a day of discussions on the topic of cultural institutions and their relationship to racism and colonial histories, looking at structural discrimination and how the role of cultural work within the art institution operates in such a framework.
The event includes apart from Vergès keynote, two panels of discussions, with scholars, artists and academics from Bern and Switzerland, discussing their experience of tackling discrimination and structural racism in the institutional framework, as well as a reading performance by Fatima Moumouni and the screening of acclaimed German artist Angela Melitopoulos’ Passing Drama, a film that discusses discrimination through the perspective of migratory experiences.
The event is organized and curated by the team of Kunsthalle Bern in collaboration with Giuliana Beya Dridi.
The event is with limited seated capacity so we would encourage you to register by phone, 031 350 00 40 or email at info_at_kunsthalle-bern.ch.

Programme

11.00
Opening remarks and welcome: iLiana Fokianaki
11.15
Françoise Vergès keynote
12.00
Response Rohit Jain and discussion with a Q&A

[lunch]

13.30
Fatima Moumouni reading / performance
13.45
Panel 1: Disordering audiences, artistic perspectives from Switzerland on racism
With Rhoda Davids Abel, Basim Magdy, Bea Schlingelhoff moderated by Federica Martini
15.00
Panel 2: Disordering education, institutional perspectives from Switzerland on the role of the institution in perpetuating discrimination
With Rohit Jain, Federica Martini and Yasmin Afschar, moderated by iLiana Fokianaki
16.15
Screening of Passing Drama (1999, 66’), by Angela Melitopoulos with an introduction by Giuliana Dridi

Location: Kunsthalle Bern, Helvetiaplatz 1 3005 Bern
Language: English
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible
Admission fee: regular 15 Fr. / reduced 10 Fr. (AHV, IV, students), a vegetarian lunch is included