À la recherche d’un corps chimérique - Une conversation avec Dénètem Touam Bona

Moderator: Tatiana Lotierzo Wednesday, July 8, 2026 4:00 PM | GMT -3 Simultaneous translation: watch here in French Like Gloria Anzaldúa, I cannot separate the colonial figure of the "mixed-race person" from the painful divide that gives it meaning (white/black, native/foreigner, etc.): the border manifests itself in subaltern bodies and territories only as an "open wound" (una herida abierta, G. Anzaldúa). Although born to a Black father and a white mother, I have never defined myself as "mixed-race," because I have always perceived as a sham the idea of ​​a world cured of racism and all its ills through "mixed-race identity." The violence of borders, concealed behind the term "mixed-race," is both intimate and geopolitical. It is from this violence, this extreme tension between asymmetrical poles, that I write: I contort myself like a snake or a vine, seizing the slightest opening to extricate myself from this absurd black-and-white reality show, drawing strength from the accidents of the territories I traverse, finding solace in every possible and imaginable material, and employing the most diverse forms. One of the objectives of my work on marronage (of which the Quilombo is one of the historical manifestations) is to escape the binary logic of “race” and the trap of fossilized identities; to celebrate the art of metamorphosis of the Quilombolas and the Pajés, a source of inspiration for diverting the fascist trajectory of the contemporary world as well as the apparatus of capture wielded by capital and empires. Visit our website: https://premiopierreverger.com/2026/