Gender – Domination – Visuality
Pierre Bourdieu's sociological view
Die Ausstellung zeigt thematisch ausgewählte Fotografien aus dem Nachlass des französischen Soziologen Pierre Bourdieu, die nach seiner Aussage seine wichtigsten theoretischen Konzepte visualisierten. Bourdieu is one of the most influential voices in international sociology of the 20th century. His major works, such as The Subtle Differences (1979) and The Misery of the World (1997), are widely received. However, Bourdieu’s early ethnographic research in Algeria between 1957 and 1961, which was conducted during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) under French colonial rule, is less well known. Here, his camera and the view through the viewfinder accompany him at every turn in his diverse empirical studies.
In hundreds of photographs, he captured the traces of a traditional way of life destroyed by colonial violence and the consequences of the uprooting caused by the brutal forced resettlement of large sections of the population. Bourdieu’s sociological perspective focused in particular on how gender-specific everyday practices and role models manifest themselves in different social contexts – for example at work or in social activities in private and public spaces. These early observations of physical and social behaviors later became an important source of inspiration for his habitus theory and the study Die männliche Herrschaft. The exhibition therefore works with a systematic combination of image and text to make this connection clearly visible.
The exhibition is complemented by the video work created in 2024 for the Centre Pompidou in Paris by the French-Algerian artist Katia Kameli (*1973). The film was made on the occasion of the presentation of Pierre Bourdieu’s Algeria paintings there and expands on them with a contemporary cinematic reflection. In her documentary work “L’Enquête Bourdieu. Le Ricochet des Images” (“The Bourdieu Investigation. The Ricochet of Images”, OmU English), Kameli follows Bourdieu’s traces in Algeria and opens up a new, audiovisual perspective on his photographic and sociological work for the exhibition.
On 19. and November 20, the first Bourdieu Lectures of Bielefeld University will take place in the Kunsthalle Bielefeld. They form an annual symposium series organized and hosted in close cooperation with the University of Bielefeld, Zeppelin University (Friedrichshafen), the Freiburg University of Education and the Fondation Pierre Bourdieu.
Details and registration can be found on the Fondation Bourdieu website.
More Informationen about life and work of Pierre Bourdieu on the website of Fondation Bourdieu.
Gallerie
