The Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR) is a collaborative platform based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Since its founding in 2010, CHR has responded to the demands of the current moment through an exploration into the historical legacies and their resonance and impact on contemporary art. By addressing current urgencies, which have grown over the debris of the issues of the past, CHR has embarked on activities (events, seminars, exhibitions, residencies, interventions, etc), engaged local (South Africa) and international practitioners and raised questions about the political potentials of artistic interpretations of histories.
Among their projects, CHR has investigated how, within a particular historical hegemony, certain values have been created, promoted and subsequently sublated into a broader universal discourse. CHR recognises that historical constructions play essential, almost central roles in the formation of the apparatus and what has been taken for granted as a given in the dominant world order. Therefore within the scope of emancipatory artistic productions, historical reenactments as an artistic framework can, and do play a significant role. CHR explores how artistic production helps us to deconstruct particular readings of history and how historical context informs artistic creation, both which become central questions. How art can help us reinterpret history and its contextual implications and how it can add and suggest different historical readings and help in the formation of new subjectivities.
http://www.historicalreenactments.org
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