Curating Commonality: Multimodal Materialities of Intercommunal Northern African Heritage

Abstract

This paper delineates multimodal materialities of intercommunal curation. I center the case of curating commonality of northern African (Maghrebi) Judeo-Islamic encounters and interactions across generations through plural Maghrebi Jewish narratives, and in the changing shape of museum curation culture. Algeria is central to historiographies of French imperial pluralism and their post-imperial metropolitan reconfigurations. For context, I introduce two curatorial modes which showcased Maghrebi Jewish trajectories in Paris: the IMA (Institut du monde arabe, Arab World Institute) exhibition Juifs d’Orient (Jews from the Orient) and the Musée de l’histoire et des cultures de l’immigration (Museum for the History of Immigration) Juifs et musulmans de l’empire à l’hexagone (Jews and Muslims from empire to Hexagone/France) where I pay attention to the exhibitions’ impact as sites encounter and interaction. Then, as a counterpoint, as participant-observer I explore a 2023 grassroots festival for North African Jewish cultures which closed with a cemetery visit of great Jewish Algeria Andalusi musicians (singers and composers). These included Reinette l’Oranaise, whose biography, music, and contemporary reception I presented to an intergenerational audience. These co-constructed experiences chime with the development of multimodal practices connected to the curation of complex intergenerational historiographical narratives between digital film and cultural reception.