Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the City

Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the City




May 19–October 18, 2009


The city of Algiers, renowned for its white walls cascading to the Mediterranean, historically sheltered a diverse population. During the Ottoman centuries (1529-1830), Algeria had been a semi-independent province of the empire. French rule (1830-1962) transformed Algeria. European norms and the French system of governance were imposed. The land was mapped, its peoples surveyed and classified, and dramatic interventions to urban fabrics enforced a new duality. In Algiers the "Arab" city on the hillside, known as the Casbah, was separated from the "French" or European city that spread out in districts below and around the Casbah. This division endured during the 132 years of French occupation leading to the War of Independence (19541962). More than a colonial capital, Algiers served as a testing ground for urban renewal with its walls extending metaphorically across the Mediterranean to take part in the search for modernity. Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the City, examines the city's complex history by considering its places and peoples through diverse 19th- and 20th-century visual sources. The exhibition will trace, for example, an itinerary of the Casbah and the European quarters through vintage postcards, and juxtapose the long-tradition of staged Orientalist representations of "indigenous" people with photojournalist coverage from the Algerian War.



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