On the occasion of a commission for the collective exhibition Rue d'Alger at the Italian Cultural Institute of Marseille, Emma Grosbois and Agathe Rosa decided to work on the documents of the Municipal Archives of Marseille about the construction of two monuments located on the Corniche Kennedy and linked to the colonial history of France: the Monument aux Armées d'Afrique et des Terres Lointaines (1927) and the Mémorial des Rapatriés d'Algérie (1971). If in Rue d'Alger they proposed a series of pieces designed from the materials found in the archives, 20 tons of bronze, 250 of granite revolves around the images and documents that the artists gathered during their research. Through a work of sampling, cutting and editing, Emma Grosbois and Agathe Rosa invite us to revisit the archive in an exhibition that questions the uniqueness of points of view on colonial history and the role of monuments in the manufacture of urban space.
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The Mémorial des Rapatriés d'Algérie
Following the independence of Algeria, on 5th July 1962, 650.000 people left the country to join France. Pied-noir and Harkis were then called “returnees”. There were 400.000 of them landing in Marseille. Eight years later, and in response to the wishes of members of the Pied-Noir community, the Marseille City Council commissioned artist César to create a commemorative sculpture.
The monument, an immense blade of a bronze maritime thruster, was inaugurated on January 20th, 1971 on the Corniche by Gaston Deferre and in the presence of 3.000 people. The inaugural speech of the mayor, like the plaque that accompanies the monument, insist on the uprooting of the French of Algeria and on the reception policy of Marseilles.
The work, like the speeches that surround it, are addressed by the municipality to the returnees, proposing both recognition of the hardships endured and integration into a broader narrative, that of Marseilles land of reception. In these discourses, colonization is either silenced or portrayed in an advantageous light, with the Blackfoot being portrayed as “pioneers who for years flew the flag of our homeland to distant lands.” (inaugural speech by Gaston Deferre).
The Monument aux Armées d'Afrique et des Terres Lointaines
Also located on the Corniche, the Monument aux Armées d'Afrique et des Terres Lointaines was commissioned by the State in 1922 by the architect Gaston Caste and the sculptor Antoin Sartorio. This monument, erected in memory of the soldiers of the French colonial army who died during the Battle of Dardanelles, is a massive arch flanked by two statues and in the center of which triumphs a bronze Victory.
Financed through a national subscription organized at the initiative of the Fédération nationale des Poilus d'Orient, it was inaugurated with great pomp, April 24th, 1927, by the President of the Republic.
Unlike the Mémorial des Rapatriés d'Algérie, it is therefore a national monument, and its creation had been delayed by a controversy: some had feared that a monument to the glory of the unknown soldiers of the Orient would undermine the commemorative unit contained in the monument to the unknown soldier erected in Paris.
The monument is accompanied by several plaques. One of them states, "Three centuries of French presence have sealed by blood a solemn pact between France and the peoples of the Indochina Union."
The two archives fonds
All the images presented in this exhibition are taken from two archives held in the Municipal Archives of Marseille.
The photographs of the construction and inauguration of the Monument aux Rapatriés are integrated into the Gaston Deferre Fonds, and recorded under the coast 570W152. A large part of these photographs were taken by Jean Fréga.
The photographs of the Monument aux Armées d'Afrique et des Terres Lointaines are part of a photographic ensemble donated by a private in 2006. It was formed by Marius Segard, granitizer at Saulxure-sur-Moseloot in the Vosges, who actively participated in the construction of this monument. In the introductory note presenting this set, we can read that «according to the oral tradition of the Segard family, the Vosges company would have mobilized 40 workers for 4 years», and that the granite used came from Corsica by boat.
