Atelier

As Venezuela grapples with profound political and economic upheaval, photographer and journalist Fabiola Ferrero turns her lens toward the nation's most enduring symbols: oil and beauty queens. In this episode, she reflects on her long-term research exploring how Venezuela's rapid modernization in the second half of the 20th century—fueled by petroleum wealth—shaped a national identity built on fantasy and aspiration. Through her projects "I Can’t Hear the Birds" and "Reinas", Ferrero examines the complicated legacy of the country's "golden years", tracing connections between extractive industries and beauty pageant culture as parallel pillars of collective memory.Fabiola Ferrero was a 2023 – 2024 Fellow of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/parisNewsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newslettersInstagram - instagram.com/cgcparisLinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparisYouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParisHost: Marie DoezemaProduction: Marie Doezema, James Allen, Charlotte Force, and Anthony ValetteEditing: Theo AlbaricMusic: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha HeWith thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in ParisThe Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

During the Bengal famine of 1943, three million people perished but left behind few tangible records. In this episode, multidisciplinary artist Sujatro Ghosh discusses bridging the gap between contemporary art and historical archives by engaging with survivors’ memories of food preservation. Ghosh frames his practice not as a search for nostalgia, but as "contemporary archive making," using the medium of performance and visual arts to preserve the lived experiences of migration and overlooked trauma.Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/parisNewsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newslettersInstagram - instagram.com/cgcparisLinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparisYouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParisHost: Marie DoezemaProduction: Marie Doezema, James Allen, Charlotte Force, and Anthony ValetteEditing: Theo AlbaricMusic: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha HeWith thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in ParisThe Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

The right to information is a pillar of democracy, yet in the face of widespread impunity, maintaining hope is vital. In this episode, Jonathan Dagher, head of the Middle East desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), discusses the unprecedented challenges facing press freedom across the region. Drawing on his transition from a Lebanese journalist to a global advocate, Dagher details RSF’s tireless efforts to protect reporters in Gaza and Syria through legal action at the International Criminal Court and direct on-the-ground support.Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/parisNewsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newslettersInstagram - instagram.com/cgcparisLinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparisYouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParisHost: Marie DoezemaProduction: Marie Doezema, James Allen, Charlotte Force, and Anthony ValetteEditing: Theo AlbaricMusic: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha HeWith thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in ParisThe Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

Newly discovered archives tell the forgotten story of systematic housing dispossession that fundamentally reshaped post-war Paris. In this episode, Sarah Gensburger discusses Appartements témoins, a microhistory that reconstructs the process by which over 20,000 Jewish tenants were stripped of their rental rights by the City of Paris. This groundbreaking book challenges the pre-existing narrative of widespread French resistance to antisemitism, fundamentally altering our understanding of French complicity and opportunism during and after the Holocaust.Appartements témoins La spoliation des locataires juifs à Paris, 1940-1946 is co-authored by Isabelle Backouche, Sarah Gensburger, and Eric Le Bourhis, and was published in 2025 by the éditions La Découverte.Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/parisNewsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newslettersInstagram - instagram.com/cgcparisLinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparisYouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParisHost: Marie DoezemaProduction: Marie Doezema, James Allen, Charlotte Force, and Anthony ValetteEditing: Theo AlbaricMusic: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha HeWith thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in ParisThe Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

In this episode, French filmmaker and journalist Hélène Lam Trong discusses Inside Gaza, her most recent documentary offering an unprecedented look into the daily lives of AFP journalists working under relentless bombardment. Built entirely from the images they produced while trying to survive, the film confronts the paradox of reporting the news while living inside it.Lam Trong recounts how the project began in the aftermath of October 7th, the long negotiations to bring the journalists to safety, and the months she spent sifting through unbearable footage to craft a story the world urgently needed to see.Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/parisNewsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newslettersInstagram - instagram.com/cgcparisLinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparisYouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParisHost: Marie DoezemaProduction: Marie Doezema, James Allen, Charlotte Force, and Anthony ValetteEditing: Theo AlbaricMusic: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha HeWith thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in ParisThe Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

In this episode, former journalist, and documentary filmmaker Florence Martin-Kessler takes us behind the curtain of Live Magazine, the groundbreaking “journalism on stage” project she founded in Paris after a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. She shares the eureka moment that sparked its creation, the delicate balance between rigor and magic, and why she believes that facts, when told with wonder, can bring people together. In a love letter to journalism, Martin-Kessler explores the fleeting experience of being moved by a true story.Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/parisNewsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newslettersInstagram - instagram.com/cgcparisLinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparisYouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParisHost: Marie DoezemaProduction: Marie Doezema, James Allen, Charlotte Force, and Anthony ValetteEditing: Theo AlbaricMusic: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha HeWith thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in ParisThe Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.