Colony: from the Latin colonia “land with installed people” and colere “inhabit, cultivate, respect, keep”. Strange how the colonizers were unable to interpret this second part.

 

COLERE emerged after I repeatedly identified European study groups on how to decolonize institutions. Despite the lack of effective historical repairs, the need to be the protagonist of all spaces makes European institutions — a product of colonizers — decide that they also want to lead discussions on how to decolonize, without getting the colonized countries to guide the process. These same institutions continue to employ dominant classes and perpetuate the power structures in which they were built.

Thus, I believe that the best way to talk about decolonization is to give a voice to the colonized, and precisely that is what COLERE wants to do through artists’ interviews. The aim is to nurture practices that escape the aesthetics and narratives established by an art history that only represents the Global North. Here to celebrate our existence.

 

Black and LGBTQ+ artists are preferred.