Perspektywy peryferyjnej historii i teorii kultury

Departing from the analysis of the relationship between the birth of the subject of race and the development of capitalism (Mbembe), Sajewska examines the status of blackness in semi-peripheral countries, such as Poland, whose participation in the history of colonial expansion is negligible, as is its influence on the shape and prosperity of capitalism. In her text she proposes to look at peripheral cultural practices as ways of producing and problematizing knowledge. She focuses her attention on Artur Żmijewski's film Glimpse, which was first presented at documenta 14 in Athens in 2017, as a result of the artist's month-long trip with his camera to areas affected by repressive refugee policy. In her historical-cultural analysis of the film, Sajewska shows the position of the artist as a subject representing "peripheral modernity" (Pratt), who on the margins of the European center - in refugee camps - once again performs the racist scenes that underpin the idea of the center’s modernity. Reflecting on the provincial status of the discourses, on the ways in which they are “travelling” in culture, on the localness of the archive and on the regional character of the concepts, she opens up perspectives on peripheral history and culture theory.