Koulounisation

Show & Culture

How do you say "colonization" in Arabic? When he asks the question, Salim Djaferi gets an unexpected answer: a hybrid word, between French and Arabic – Koulounisation. In Algiers, July 2018, the artist, born in France to Algerian parents, looks in a bookstore for the section dedicated to the Algerian war. The bookseller redirects him to the "Revolution" section. For some, a war; for others, a revolution: the same event, two stories kept apart by language. What do these differences say about the history we receive, transmit, or keep silent? Starting from this question, Salim Djaferi investigates through a performance that is both theatre and conference. He gathers words, charging and discharging the language of a colonial past that continues to shape languages and memory. "Colonization is like guests who overstay their welcome," he is once told. On stage, the investigation comes to life, with the space itself gradually becoming the field for the questions raised – and a topic in itself. With humor that defuses but never avoids, Koulounisation teaches us to hear what words do – to us and from us. Past and present.