Exhibition to be discovered at the BU Saint-Denis Droit-Lettres, Indian Ocean Room, Monday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 19 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

The era of Independence was a turbulent time in the Indian Ocean: questions of decolonization, autonomy or even departmentalization were at the center of people's daily debates.

This politicization of life is reflected in popular cultures, and conversely, popular cultures contribute to the debate. It is about asserting its place, as an independent country or as a department. In this new postcolonial world order, people are searching for their identity, (re)discovering it, forging it and claiming it.

Popular cultures play a primordial role in the emergence of a postcolonial imagination of the Indian Ocean. By inscribing them on a medium (printed, sound, photographic), they proclaim the singularity of each one and give it its importance. This gives rise to pride for the territory and its honored inhabitants who imagine, thus, discovering their culture elsewhere, on the other side of the sea. These years are also marked by the beginning of globalization with a timid but real appropriation of external influences, notably from the United States with rock'n'roll, Coca Cola, and cinema.

The exhibition aims to present a range of these popular expressions thanks to the extremely rich heritage available to us in Reunion and the Indian Ocean: the impressive collections of the university and departmental libraries of Reunion which bring together several thousand documents. (books, newspapers, brochures, posters, maps, images, sound and audiovisual recordings) on the countries of the Indian Ocean, the iconographic archive of the Indian Ocean grouped in the Historical Iconothèque of the Indian Ocean and the sound archive of the Indian Ocean that constitutes the Indian Ocean Sound Library, were called upon to delve into the literary, visual and musical world of this turbulent era.

An exhibition organized by Sonja Malzner, as part of the international conference “Popular representations of the Indian Ocean in the era of Independence (1950s-1970s)” (Saint-Denis, September 7-8-9, 2023)