FNRS 2024 calls: Focus on the PaTHs Institute

The strength of disciplinary know-how within PaTHs makes possible bold openings into the exact sciences, which have already been initiated by most of the 5 centers and groups affiliated to the institute: AcanthuM (Monumental, archaeological and artistic heritage), aRaiRe (Recherches namuroises en histoire Rurale), Fontes Antiquitatis, HiSI (History, sounds and images) and PraME (Medieval written practices).

The mammisi or birthing house is a typical architectural feature of Egyptian temples from the Greco-Roman period. The Roman mammisi at Dendera, dating from the Nerva-antonine period (2nd century CE), is the last specimen of this type and embodies the synergy of 400 years of tradition and innovation. The mammisi was dedicated to the child-god and celebrated his (re)birth as a guarantee of natural cycles and thus of Egypt's prosperity.

This project aims to reconstruct the intellectual and material processes that had to be put in place to realize the architectural project. From the priests who gathered theological ideas to the hierogrammatists who wrote the texts and designed the decoration on papyrus, from the architects and workers who erected the walls to the engravers who transferred the concept of decoration from papyrus to the walls, this project sets out to study this monument from different angles in order to identify the operational chain of an architectural project.

The missions in Egypt will produce a new publication conforming to modern standards of epigraphy and a translation of all the texts. This will make it possible to study the arrangement of the monument's decoration made up of offering scenes and texts according to the rules that Egyptologists have called "temple grammar", and to understand the relationship between image and text.

The project will thus provide the first detailed study of the theology of Dendera's two child-gods. It will analyze the hieroglyphic system, characteristic of texts from the Roman period, and examine the walls to define the engraving techniques of the ancient craftsmen. Finally, he will place the mammisi in a wider context to highlight the architectural strategies of the emperors of the Nerva-antonine dynasty in Egypt.

Over the past twenty years, several works by photographic artists have given visibility to the effects of radioactivity - mainly following the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters - or to the risks associated with the burial of radioactive waste.

Series by Japan's Takashi Arai, Switzerland's Julian Charrière, France's David Fathi, Guillaume Herbaut, Jacqueline Salmon, Anaïs Tondeur and Lucas Chastel, Germany's Jürgen Nefzger and Wim Wenders, and Belgium's Cécile Massart have been selected.

Five objectives are pursued in this research:

• analyze the contexts of these artistic productions;
• define the intentions of their authors, with regard to their body of work and their contribution to a nuclear culture;
• study the aesthetics of their creations, in relation to the materiality of photography, its nature as imprint, trace, testimony or even representation ;
• evaluate the public reception of these distinct works;
• contribute, through the dialogical linking of these works, their analysis and dissemination, to a nuclear culture nourished by artistic expression.

A comparative method will be applied to the study of the different series in the corpus to identify their specificities, convergences and/or divergences, assessed against the scientific literature available in the field of visual arts and the humanities on nuclear power and its representations. Fieldwork will be undertaken through interviews conducted with each photographer.

From a cultural studies perspective, this research is part of an approach to analyzing the construction of representations and knowledge, free from bias but invested in societal debates in which the art center and publishing house partners in this research project are also involved, through their respective activities, and which will disseminate the results via:

• an exhibition scheduled at the Le Delta art center (Namur, March-July 2026)
• a study day involving some of the exhibited artists (UNamur, March 2026)
• a book to be published by La Lettre Volée editions (Brussels) (spring 2026)

FNRS funding will enable interviews to be conducted with the artists concerned, in Belgium, France and Germany, but also to guarantee the dissemination of this research, by funding part of the book and exhibition communication in which it will take shape.