Archetypes of Transformation: Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam's Aesthetic Collaboration Against Conquest Ideology
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Abstract
Between Césaire and Lam an original encounter occurred that greatly impacted both their oeuvres throughout a lifetime of collaborations. From the force and tenderness of their exchanges and that the testimonies of their meeting, I imagine a transformation of so much intensity that we might understand it as a mutation, or an accelerated change of exponential dimensions. As I examine what I call "archetypes of transformation" in Césaire and Lam's work in common, I situate the theory of archetypes presented by Carl Jung as fundamental for understanding an aesthetic collaboration that deconstructs conquest ideology in Occidental thought. I argue that the dialogical work between Césaire and Lam in a little-known shared project pushes to its edge an Occidental structure of hierarchical and binary thought connected to the history of Conquest.
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