Chokri Ben Chikha, performance artist and historian, spent four years of research on colonial environments on World Exhibitions, especially on the World Exhibition of Ghent (Belgium) in 1913. In Ghent, villages with natives from the Philippines and from Senegal were exhibited. Eventually, a Philippino died from the cold climate, thus causing upheaval. The ‘authentic’ villagers, were actually on tour, they behaved, just as Barnum & Bailey's, as troupes of popular, 'educating' entertainment. But they also constitute locuses of the performance of colonial relationships of power and civilisation.
Today, Chokri Ben Chikha prepares a theatrical performance based upon his research. He creates a ‘truth commission’ on both the facts that happened during the Ghent World Fair of 1913, and on contemporary cultural practices presumably reproducion these hierarchical north-south relationships, willingly or not: postcolonial performance, ‘orientalist’ entertainment, .... His ‘truth commission’ and his witnessing bench include both experts and actors. During the performance, they will develop scenarios for judgment, compensation and reconciliation for historical and contemporary (neo)colonial misdemeanors. The audience will be invited to decide about the best solution.
Being an adviser and scriptwriter for this production, I would like to observe and to analyze the epistemological plus-value of this performative treatment of past and present injustices. In different contexts, truth (and reconciliation) commissions have proved to play a crucial role in political transitions. The specific performative nature of these commissions was often decisive for their (positive, negative or indifferent) impact on these processes. The question I will be focusing on is whether and to which degree an artificial event, using artistic means, is able to enhance our insights in these efforts of ‘truth & reconciliation’, especially when dealing with historical injustice.
