What can be gained from discussing materiality, as opposed to simply talking about objects? This episode, On Materiality, examines what it means to engage with objects, substances, and textures. We contemplate the more profound implications of our relationship with things, how we can think through them, and how this connects to the work of political imagination. Our guest, Carine Ayélé Durand, is Director of Musée d'Ethnographie, Genève. Her curatorial and academic work involves collaborations with indigenous groups in the Arctic, the Brazilian Amazon and Canada to rethink engagements with material culture, visual arts, and museum exhibitions.

Some of Durand’s essays include Artistic Practice and (Museum) Ethnography (2010); Anthropology in a Glass Case: Indigeneity, Collaboration, and Artistic Practice in Museums (2010); Indexing (In)Authenticity: Art and Artefact in Ethnography Museums (2012); and Redefining Curatorship as Skilled Practice (2023).

Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel.

Production: Zainabu Jallo, Ann Karimi Kern ( Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.