The Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining region, bordering on Belgium, is part of northern Europe’s historical centre of heavy industry, which extends as far as the Ruhr area in Germany. With the end of coal mining in the 1980s, the Lille region transitioned to new economic activities, particularly within the cultural and creative industries, taking advantage of its strategic location midway between Paris, London and Brussels. After de-industrialisation and the 1984 opening of the Lewarde Mining Museu...

“Disassembled” Images takes as a point of departure Allan Sekula’s productive approach of disassembling elements in order to reassemble them in alternative constellations. Some of the most pressing issues of our time, such as human labor in a globalized economy or the claim for radical democracy, are recurrent themes in Sekula’s oeuvre and are investigated by a wide range of experts in this book. Addressing a variety of artworks, both by Sekula and other artists, the collected essays ...

From careful brushes to jealous scribbles, the stylistic range of how figures are censored is quite diverse. But the defacements here seem more concerned with the censor’s own feelings rather than enhancing the overall aesthetic. In these images it is easy to deduce that the censored figures are women – snippets of purses or high heels, the blobs’ lingering feminine form. The censor’s hand lends them an eerie quality, whether by accident or not. Yet the pictures are also very romantic...