The Past 100 Years, Part 1: WdW Review Offline, is a conference that discusses the destabilizing wake, and subsequent geo-political reformations, that can be traced to the demise of two centuries-old Empires: the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman.

Join us at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art on February 28 as we investigate how affect was marshaled to bind these and other empires together, sometimes in friendship, and other times as adversaries, while we also trace a longer arc to spy how like chains of alternate histories and tales are still being traded in these former geographic areas.

This conference, staged with and through the institutions’ online platform WdW Review, consists of three registers; a critical section of keynote lectures and a film screening, a set of interpretative image readings of artworks featured in the exhibition The Sultan’s World at BOZAR, Brussels, and a geographic panel session based on WdW Review’s international network of editorial desks in Rotterdam, Moscow, Cairo, and Istanbul. Artist Dan Perjovschi will stage a series of interventions during the day.

The event features key journalists, academics, and writers, including: Abdelkader Benali (Rotterdam Desk, WdW Review), Ilya Budraitskis (Moscow Desk, WdW Review), Dr. Robert Born (Researcher, GWZO-Institute, Leipzig), Dr. Peter Busch (Senior Lecturer, Department of War Studies, Kings College, London), Lawrence Abu Hamdan (Artist, London), Guy Mannes-Abbott (Writer and Critic, London), Dr. Guido Messling (Curator of German painting, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), Yasmine El Rashidi (Cairo Desk, WdW Review), Binnaz Saktanber (Istanbul Desk, WdW Review), Alev Scott (Freelance Journalist and Writer, Istanbul) and Yazan Khalili (Artist, Amsterdam / Ramallah). The panel discussion is moderated by Annie Fletcher (Chief Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven).

This one-day event forms a core component of the international project Ottomans and Europeans—reflecting on five centuries of cultural relations.

—Supported by

European Union
SAHA Foundation