Am I Evil?

Who is Jeanne Walschot?

Marie-Jeanne Walschot (1896-1977) was a white Belgian art dealer and collector of ‘art nègre’, one of the names Europeans used to give to those African artefacts that became their own property. She was internationally known for her specialisation in so-called ‘Congoliana’, artefacts from the former Belgian Congo. She was the very first female dealer of this sort of artefacts and played a key role in the promotion of cultural colonialism in Belgium and abroad. After her death, her giant collection was gifted to the Royal Museum for Central Africa (now AfricaMuseum).

Am I Evil?

Simone Basani and Alice Ciresola are a Belgian-Italian curator duo. In this lecture, they tell about their encounter with Walschot's collection in the archives of the AfricaMuseum. Through the figure of Jeanne Walschot, they explore the power dynamics of abuse, exoticization and racism from their personal feminist and Mediterranean perspective. More specifically, they look at the erotic relationship Walschot established with her collection.

‘Am I Evil?’ is part of JEANNE. Or the Western Touch, a collection of performative and participatory artworks, curated by Basani and Ciresola. The collection functions as a research and production frame through which the curators invite artists, art practitioners and researchers to create works inspired by the life of Jeanne Walschot. As the title of the collection suggests, these works focus, from different perspectives, on the way European or Western culture looks at, touches and relates to the Other.

photo © Bilal Kamilla Arnout