The Body’s Legacies, Part 1: The Objects, 2018
Video, 58:20 min
The Body’s Legacies is a reflection in film on the historical, psychological, and political impacts of European colonialism. In his two-part film essay, Kader Attia collects interviews in which international experts from the fields of history, ethnography, cultural studies, art history, and more discuss various aspects of postcolonial life.
The first part of the film, The Objects, deals with the topic of cultural appropriation under the conditions of colonialism and the associated questions about the return of cultural assets. It focuses on a critical discussion of a large number of objects taken from people by European occupiers and missionaries, who brought them to their home countries. Removed from their functions and social uses, these objects still appear in European and North American collections today, where they are presented from a purely Western perspective. Within the film, this raises complex questions regarding the authority and legitimacy of the institutions that engage in these practices.