{"id":52078,"date":"2026-03-24T22:01:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T22:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52078"},"modified":"2026-03-24T22:05:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T22:05:31","slug":"online-seminar-series-socialist-visual-cultures-and-decolonization-circulations-reinterpretations-and-resistances-of-visual-models-in-the-context-of-the-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52078","title":{"rendered":"Online Seminar Series \u201cSocialist Visual Cultures and Decolonization: Circulations, (Re)interpretations, and Resistances of Visual Models in the Context of the Cold War\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Host: Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA, Paris) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organizers: Coline Perron, Sasha Artamonova, Ga\u00eblle Prodhon, Jade Thau <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This five-part seminar examines how visual cultures at the intersection of socialism and decolonization reworked, circulated, and resisted socialist aesthetic models during the Cold War. By focusing on the production, circulation, and reception of images, it explores how postcolonial societies appropriated and transformed socialist visual languages to construct new national and transnational identities within \u201cred globalization\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All sessions take place 2\u20134 pm (CET) and are organized in a hybrid format (on-site at INHA, Paris, and online via Zoom).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the middle of the twentieth century, in the context of the Cold War, various countries began to envision socialism as an alternative to colonial domination. The \u201cnew Cold War history\u201d and the scholarship on \u201cglobal socialism,\u201d which developed in the wake of Odd Arne Westad\u2019s work, have contributed to questioning the bipolar view of the world during this period by restoring agency to countries in the process of decolonization. Far from playing a passive role in the ideological conflict between the two \u201csuperpowers,\u201d these countries sought to make their voices heard. Numerous attempts to establish a \u201cthird way,\u201d both ideologically and politically, emerged, and several states adopted socialist regimes that maintained sometimes complex relations with the USSR (Algeria, Vietnam, Ethiopia, among others). These nations thus became part of a \u201cRed globalization\u201d (Sanchez-Sibony, 2014) and engaged in a wide range of exchanges\u2014educational, military, economic, and cultural\u2014within a socialist camp that was far from homogeneous, reflecting the persistence of North\u2013South dynamics throughout the Cold War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this dual context of the Cold War and decolonization, the cultural sphere\u2014and particularly the visual arts\u2014 occupied a crucial place. Socialism offered powerful visual models associated with ideals of international solidarity, class struggle, and resistance to colonial, racist, and imperialist oppression. For countries in the process of decolonization, the production of images served as a way to defend a worldview opposed to that of the enemy and, at the same time, to promote their emerging national cultures. Situated at the crossroads of multiple cultures and civilizations, the images produced within these postcolonial societies not only reflected this historical turning point but also actively contributed to it. Analyzing the processes of production, circulation, and reception of these images provides a key tool for understanding the formation of postcolonial nation-states. It reveals the logics of appropriation and reinvention of socialist models while highlighting the exchanges between the \u201cbrother countries\u201d of the Global South and the Socialist Bloc. These young nations did not simply adopt external models but actively participated in their redefinition, producing hybrid images that were both local and transnational. Such visual productions testify to how postcolonial states constructed their symbolic and visual identities while asserting cultural autonomy within the networks of socialist solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural exchanges and diplomacy between Europe, the United States, and the so-called \u201cGlobal South\u201d have been examined in recent scholarly events\u2014particularly in Europe (Germany, Finland, Austria, Romania, and elsewhere)\u2014and by research groups working on Cold War studies. In France, however, this field of research remains less developed. More broadly, the notions of cultures, transfers, and visual models (such as Socialist Realism), which emerged at the intersection of decolonization processes and the ideological context of the Cold War, have not yet been sufficiently explored. In the postcolonial context, young nations sought to break away from the visual models imposed by colonization and from exogenous gazes, aiming instead to create representations rooted in their national identity. This reconfiguration of visual imaginaries unfolded as a process of symbolic and political re-appropriation. The encounter with socialism\u2014which itself brought normative visual models and aesthetics of ideological mobilization\u2014opened up a fertile space of hybridization. Yet, these exchanges were not without tension: decolonizing nations, eager to create their own visual identities, sometimes developed visual cultures that conflicted with the ideals of \u201cSocialist Realism.\u201d It thus becomes crucial to analyze how postcolonial nations appropriated, transformed, or subverted these socialist models to respond to their own needs for legitimacy, national unity, and cultural sovereignty. This interaction reveals unique processes of visual adaptation, in which art becomes a strategic tool of resistance, emancipation, and the reinvention of collective imaginaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This seminar, held over five sessions, aims to bring together emerging and established scholars working on the analysis of visual productions that emerged within these postcolonial societies in relation to various socialist contexts, adopting a comparative perspective. Beyond the iconographic and stylistic analysis of images\u2014which form the main corpus of the presented research\u2014the seminar will consider the entire process of production, from conception to dissemination and reception. This comprehensive approach will make it possible to examine the social practices and uses of images within their contexts, revealing the mechanisms of creation, mediation, and appropriation that contributed to the construction of visual imaginaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seminar program<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

February 11, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 – 4 pm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Session 1:  Presentation of the Seminar \u201cSocialist Visual Cultures and Decolonization\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n