Affecting Relation in Climat de France, Algiers: Decolonial Poetics and Embodied Ethics of Recognition

Chapter 2 explores art engagements with the monumental housing project Climat de France in Algiers, designed by French architect Fernand Pouillon. The chapter explores how artwork is invested in both representing and producing a decolonial “poetics of relation” that reconfigures the housing as a site of knowledge and recognition. Inspired by Edouard Glissant, the author reads relational poetics in four artworks—Marie Richeux’s novel Climats de France, Amina Menia’s video art piece A Peculiar Family Album, Stéphane Couturier’s photographic and video work, and Hamid Rahiche’s performance and photography. Through an affective and embodied lens, art connects the dots between segregated histories and peoples, creating new definitions of kinship.