Tales of a Nomadic City - Workshop

In the organizer's words:

As part of this years exhibition TALES OF A NOMADIC CITY at the Filmforum Freiburg the researchers and directors Christian Vium & Med Lemine Rajel will be giving a workshop titled REFRAMING EPHERNERAL ARCHIVES. The participants will be involved in discussing and imagining a living archive.

About the exhibition:

Tales of a Nomadic City is a long-term collaborative research project spanning two decades. Centred on Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania, it assembles oral histories, vernacular archives, rare archival film and photographs, a feature documentary about the city, as well as a VR experience. The material is progressively given form and published in books, exhibitions, and online, meeting various audiences and inviting people to revision the history of the city.

For this installation at the Freiburger Filmforum, film excerpts from the archive are presented alongside an immersive VR experience co-directed by Christian Vium & Med Lemine Rajel, accompanied by a newsprint publication, a cassette, and a limited-edition poster.

With

Christian Vium (b. 1980, Denmark) is Associate Professor in Anthropology at Aarhus University (DK). In addition to time-based media, he increasingly works with large-scale immersive installations integrating photography, films, sound, and archive material. His work has been exhibited in 40+ national and international exhibitions. Vium is Principal Investigator on the research projects 'Revisioning the African City from the Periphery' (Independent Research Foundation Denmark, 2025-2028) and 'North Atlantic Everyday Stories' (Velux Foundation, 2024-2027).

Med Lemine Rajel (b. 1986, Mauritania) is a filmmaker and cinematographer with his own film production company based in Nouakchott, Mauritania. With ten years of experience as a freelance video- and photojournalist working for clients such as AFP, BBC, Aljazeera, the UN, Al Araby, DMI, the Goethe-Institut and GIZ. Founder of the Teranim Popular Art Center in Nouakchott, and cinematographer, editor, and producer on several award-winning documentary films, including 'The Last Shelter' (CPH DOX main award 2021) and 'The father Probably' (Promotional Prize of Oberhausen short film festival 2024). BA degree in Sociology, Université de Nouakchott, Mauritania.