The Memorial For Those Who Did Not Fall In War
Proof of registration, via a QR code on your phone or on paper, will be required to enter Reid Hall. Entry will be refused to those who are not registered.
This event will be held in English.
Organized by the Columbia Global Paris Center and Columbia University Global Center for Peace Innovation, THALIM CNRS, Columbia Department of French, and Institut pour la Paix.
To be notified of upcoming Paris Global Center events, we invite you to sign up for our monthly newsletter.
—
The memorial will take place over the course of three days. When registering, participants are invited to indicate which day(s) they plan to attend the symposium via the registration form. The detailed program is available below.
Please note that the event will be filmed for a documentary about the project. By registering, attendees consent to being filmed and to appear in materials produced for the project.
—
Program
09:40–10:15 Gathering
10:15–10:30 Acknowledgments and Project Vision
- Dr. Hadas Zahavi, Director of The Memorial for Those Who Did Not Fall in War (Columbia University)
10:30–12:00 Opening Lecture and Discussion: Témoigner pour le témoin
- Prof. Georges Didi-Huberman (EHESS)
12:00–13:30 Lunch Break
13:30–15:00 Opening Panel: War in Disguise
- Prof. Nina Berman (Columbia University, Fellow of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination)
- Prof. Françoise Vergès (University of London)
- Kapwani Kiwanga
Session Chair: Prof. Yann Toma
15:00–15:15 Coffee Break
15:15–16:15 Literary Conversation: Algeria in France Today
- Leïla Sebbar
- Yahia Belaskri
16:15–16:30 Refreshment Break
16:30–17:45 Artist Talk: Unlearning War Through Images
- Hito Steyerl
- Prof. Lorie Novak (NYU)
18:00–19:00 Exhibition Opening and Artistic Performance
- What Have I Done to You? Baptist Coelho
19:00–20:00 Dance Performance with Live Piano
- Ablaye Birahim Diop
- Nikias Imhoof
09:30–10:00 Gathering
10:00–11:30 Roundtable: War as a System of Spaces
- Research Director at the CNRS Prof. Sarga Moussa (THALIM, CNRS): Rendre visibles et audibles les blessés de la guerre dans Un souvenir de Solférino (1862) d'Henry Dunant; Une rhétorique de l'horreur au service d'un humanisme moderne d'inspiration chrétienne
- Prof. Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne Université): Paysage de guerre, paysage de paix? À propos d'une zone minière/concentrationnaire en République tchèque
- Prof. Thomas Hippler (University of Caen): Bombing for Peace? Aerial Warfare and World-Orders
Session Chair: Dr. Guido Furci (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)
11:30–11:45 Coffee Break
11:45–13:15 Interactive Session: Peace in Practice
- Majd Abdel Hamid: Texture of Memory
- Prof. Yann Toma (Sorbonne): L’Air de la guerre
- Dr. Barbara Polla (ULB): Hospitalité et paix : un effort perpétuel
13:15–14:30 Lunch Break
14:30–15:15 Performance
- Inutile, Meltem Yildiz
15:15–15:30 Coffee Break
15:30–17:00 Roundtable: Peace After the Algorithm
- Prof. Alexandre Gefen (THALIM CNRS): Language and War in the Age of Generative AI
- Lesia Khomenko: Working on User-Generated Footage from the Russian-Ukrainian War
- Warren Neidich: Peace Machine: The Brain Without Organs
Session Chair: Dr. Syd Krochmalny
17:00–17:15 Short Break
17:15–18:15 Workshop
- Julieta Aranda
18:15–19:15 Refreshment Break
19:15–20:45 Film Screening: Nikah, followed by Q&A
- Mukaddas Mijit
- Bastien Ehouzan
09:30–10:00 Gathering & Morning Coffee
10:00–11:40 Closing Panel: Whose War Is It, Anyway?
- Prof. Stéphane Gerson (NYU): Quand la guerre se terre sous l’aventure
- Prof. Philippe Mesnard (Université Clermont Auvergne): De quelle imagination parlons-nous ?
- Prof. Catherine Brun (THALIM, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle): « Il paraît que nous sommes en guerre »
- Dr. Dalia Abu Sbitan (THALIM CNRS) What Remains Carried
Session Chair: Dr. Pauline Hachette (Université Paris 8)
11:40–11:45 Coffee Break
11:45–13:00 Artist Conversation
- Paola Yacoub, La guerre est monotone
With the participation of Michel Lasserre, Raul Martinez, Baptist Coelho, Pierre Salloum, Helena Czernek, Alexander Prugar, and Asta Gröting
13:00–13:15 Closing Projection
Louis-Cyprien Rials: Droptank (Fishing Party), 2021
—
The Memorial For Those Who Did Not Fall In War (MNW), reimagines the emblem of war’s suffering, the memorial, for a world in which “peace” no longer shields anyone from the harms and responsibilities of military violence. Nations that see themselves as peaceful continue to participate in the global arms trade and in military interventions that fuel wars and genocides. As a result, even those who have never set foot in a conflict zone are shaped by war’s psychological, ecological, and political consequences, whether distant or historical.
Refusing to remain unwilling partners and silent sufferers of this destruction, MNW gathers collaborators from across the globe, from the world's leading contemporary artists and theorists to writers, performers, and filmmakers, around a shared conviction: as long as we are all harmed by war and participate in the systems that sustain conflict, none of us can truly be at peace. From this position, the MNW invites audiences to question their most basic assumptions about how peace and war are perceived, experienced, and imagined, and to develop new cultural, visual, and intellectual languages through which to understand what it means to live 'at peace' and 'at war' in the twenty-first century.
The Paris launch will unfold across three interconnected dimensions: a contemporary art exhibition, an international symposium, and a public cultural program of performances, readings, and screenings. Together, these formats form the foundation of MNW’s long-term model, in which research, artistic practice, and public pedagogy are inseparable.
This inaugural event marks the beginning of the Memorial’s ongoing journey across regions and continents. Conceived as a drifting, evolving institution rather than a fixed monument, MNW will continue to travel globally to each region of the world, engaging local histories, conflicts, and forms of memory, while building conversations across frontiers on responsibility, peace, and ecological justice.
At a time when war is increasingly normalized as distant, inevitable, or abstract, The Memorial for Those Who Did Not Fall in War insists on a different ethical and cultural stance: that peace cannot be understood as the absence of direct violence, and that responsibility does not stop at national borders.
—
Board
Hadas Zahavi (Director), Alexandre Gefen, Sarga Moussa, Sarah Cole, Marianne Hirsch, Bruno Bosteels, Madeleine Dobie, Nina Berman, Joerg M. Schaefer, David C. Johnston, Thomas W. Dodman.
—
Participating Artists
Hito Steyerl (Germany), Kapwani Kiwanga (Canada/France), Julieta Aranda (Mexico/Germany), Majd Abdel Hamid (Palestine/Syria), Lesia Khomenko (Ukraine), Louis-Cyprien Rials (Iraq/France), Nina Berman (USA), Lorie Novak (USA), Yann Toma (France), Paola Yacoub (Lebanon/France), Vera Kox (Luxembourg/Germany), Meltem Yildiz (Bakur Kurdistan), Ablaye Birahim Diop (Senegal/France), Baptist Coelho (India/France), Warren Neidich (USA), Syd Krochmalny (Argentina), Detext (Spain), Manuela Morgaine (France).
—
The organizers wish to express their sincere gratitude to NYU Maison Française, Columbia University Society of Senior Scholars, Université Paris-Est Créteil, Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Cloud Seven, Eric Mouchet Gallery, The Slip, Seize Avril, Galerie Poggi, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg, Maison du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, Marfa Projects, Ceysson & Bénétière, L’Endroit, Les Films du Bal, as well as to the individuals Lindsey Michelle Schram, Scott Milan, Marie-Laure Desjardins, Betti-Sue Hertz, Robert Snyder, Scott M Krupa, Mickaël Faure, Frédéric de Goldschmidt, Patrice Joly, Eric Mouchet et Corinne Diserens, for their generous support and collaboration.
This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.
Reid Hall, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination are not responsible for the views and opinions expressed by their speakers and guests.