Decolonizing Arts: A Conversation with Guadeloupean Playwright Gerty Dambury

Come meet Gerty Dambury to understand her experience and political combat through arts and literature. Dambury is a theater director, novelist, and poet from Guadeloupe. She studied English and Arabic at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

During the social negotiations in Guadeloupe in 2009, Gerty Dambury deplores a disturbing fact: “Once the Secretary of State was called back, as well as all other services and Directors representing the French State administration, only Black people were left ». This stroke the author as reflecting a global absence of Black professionals (with few exceptions) in French State administration, in committees deciding about cultural grants, or national cultural centers. To address this problem, she decided to participate in writing the manifesto « Décolonisons les arts ! » (“Decolonize art!”) launched in September 2018 at La Colonie, the cultural space co-founded by the French artist Kader Attia.

The discussion will be held in English.

Date and time: November 7, 2022 from 2:45 to 4:00 pm

Join Zoom Meeting: Please contact Prof. Fély Catan for the Zoom link.

This event is organized by Prof. Fély Catan and sponsored by the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies.