Uploaded February 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The current attention to contentious statues and monuments is an international phenomenon. In many countries, national symbols linked to colonialism or slavery are critically challenging heritage policy and management. Their artistic or historical value is often eclipsed by the perception of a negative iconographic role in present-day society. As symptoms of the historical construction of national identity, the sculptures are, however, only the tip of the iceberg. As expressions of propaganda, many buildings, sites, or other (tangible or intangible) heritage can just as well be labeled as contentious.
As the holder of the PP Rubens Chair at UC Berkeley in 2022, Nikolaas Vande Keere will present a lecture on contemporary iconoclasm and contentious colonial heritage in Belgium and abroad. He will place the debate into a broader perspective and extend the existing strategies for the statues to a museological and architectural context. To illustrate the potential of adaptive reuse in this field, he will present two research-by-design projects of colonial encounter in Belgium and Central Africa. How can adaptive reuse contribute to the (re-)construction of a (new) identity? How can we activate in a positive way the unsettled memories turned to stone?
The current attention to contentious statues and monuments is an international phenomenon. In many countries, national symbols linked to colonialism or slavery are critically challenging heritage policy and management. Their artistic or historical value is often eclipsed by the perception of a negative iconographic role in present-day society. As symptoms of the historical construction of national identity, the sculptures are, however, only the tip of the iceberg. As expressions of propaganda, many buildings, sites, or other (tangible or intangible) heritage can just as well be labeled as contentious.
As the holder of the PP Rubens Chair at UC Berkeley in 2022, Nikolaas Vande Keere will present a lecture on contemporary iconoclasm and contentious colonial heritage in Belgium and abroad. He will place the debate into a broader perspective and extend the existing strategies for the statues to a museological and architectural context. To illustrate the potential of adaptive reuse in this field, he will present two research-by-design projects of colonial encounter in Belgium and Central Africa. How can adaptive reuse contribute to the (re-)construction of a (new) identity? How can we activate in a positive way the unsettled memories turned to stone?
