A specific focus of Peripheries and Horizons is placed on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) where cultural and political peripheralisation intersects with complex histories of empire, through different practices of socialism and communism, internationalism and nationalism, and transitions towards "democracy" and capitalism. The series also examines how “whiteness” is constructed, negotiated, and destabilised in these contexts, challenging assumptions of a homogeneous European identity.
The series considers coloniality in particular contexts of this region. Invasion, conquest, and oppression can certainly be part of colonial histories, but they are not sufficient conditions, on their own, to define a country as "colonised". Colonialism is also characterised by a specific material relation of extraction between a centre and its colonies—a relation that does not correspond in the same way to the history of these countries. This series challenges the equivalence between the historical conditions of countries in Eastern Europe, and that of colonised countries in the Global South, by embracing and making space for complexity.
In this special episode, author, filmmaker, and jewellery-maker Ariella Aïsha Azoulay details shared, intertwined histories of Jewish and Muslim life in Algeria and North Africa, and how they have been fractured through French colonialism and Zionism, in their book, The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World (2024, 2026).
This episode was recorded as part of Peripheries and Horizons, a public programme curated by Jelena Sofronijevic with Pierre-Antoine Vettorello in response to Postcolonial?, a free exhibition at the House of European History in Brussels.
Link coming soon!
EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of empires through art. Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial exchange, revealing the how and why of the monolith 'empire'.
In this special episode, contemporary artist Selma Selman draws on her personal history and Roma heritage to address labour, value, and marginalisation, moving between Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Berlin in her film, Crossing the Blue Bridge (2024, 2026).
Link coming soon!
This online conversation brings together curator Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, and Professor Harsha Ram to examine how the concept of “Easternness” can be understood in relation to Russian imperial and Eurasian contexts. The discussion explores the role of literature and aesthetics in shaping imperial imaginaries of the “East”, alongside the significance of the Caucasus as a space of cultural encounter, marginality, and geopolitical projection. It also considers the relationship between former socialist histories and postcolonial and decolonial frameworks, reflecting on how artistic and cultural practices challenge dominant narratives across Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe and Eurasia. Chaired by Jelena Sofronijevic (EMPIRE LINES podcast).
Join online. No registration required. The link will be activated shortly before the event starts.Link is external
Event in French - Les fils brodés de la colonialité : Orientalisme, appropriation culturelle et colonialité interne en Europe
What can textiles, clothing and craft practices reveal about the power relations that run through Europe? In a dialogue between Françoise Vergès and Khémaïs Ben Lakhdar-Rezgui, this conversation will explore Orientalism, cultural appropriation and internal coloniality across different European contexts. Focusing particularly on the Balkans, Roma communities and other European peripheries, it will examine the processes of exoticisation and folklorisation through which certain groups have been constructed as Europe’s “internal others”. By tracing the circulation of motifs, embroidery and craft knowledge towards the centres of fashion, design and culture, the discussion will highlight the cultural hierarchies that continue to shape European imaginaries.
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This online conversation brings together artist Marianne Keating, curator Viviana Checchia, and playwright and activist Rosaleen McDonagh to examine how the concept of coloniality can be understood within the Irish context, with particular attention to Roma and Traveller communities. The discussion explores the intersections of ethnicity, disability, and gender in shaping experiences of marginalisation; the role of theatre and writing in challenging dominant histories and amplifying underrepresented voices; and how institutional structures reproduce structural inequalities. Adopting an intersectional, rights-based perspective, the conversation considers contemporary debates on identity, citizenship, and belonging across Europe. Chaired by Jelena Sofronijevic from EMPIRE LINES podcast.
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This online conversation brings together artist Karolina Uskakovych, curator Joanna Warsza, and historian and critical geographer Zoltán Ginelli to examine how the concept of coloniality can be understood through the material, cultural, and political histories of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) and Russia. The discussion explores how artistic practices, exhibitions, and critical research engage with questions of geopolitical transformation, memory, and representation, particularly in relation to post-communist and post-socialist histories, Russian imperialism, and the war in Ukraine. Chaired by Jelena Sofronijevic from the EMPIRE LINES podcast.
Join online. No registration required. The link will be activated shortly before the event starts.Link is external
As part of the Peripheries and Horizons series, this screening of El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia (2023) by Ivan Ramljak explores the exile of communities in Yugoslavia to a refugee camp in northern Egypt during World War II. Situating this European displacement within British colonial spaces, the film highlights how war and ideology was experienced through imperial infrastructures, revealing the entanglements of European crises with colonial peripheries and alternative social imaginaries.
Registration link coming soon!
Banner image: Still from El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia (2023) courtesy of Ivan Ramljak.
