Le projet CallFront a récemment fait l’objet d’un article dans La Gazette Drouot. Issu d’une entrevue avec Éloïse Brac de la Perrière, conseillère scientifique à l’INHA et directrice du programme CallFront, cet article présente les fondements du projet, ses enjeux scientifiques, ainsi que sa portée internationale et interdisciplinaire.
Dans le cadre du colloque CallFront, le film documentaire d’Antoine Brendlen, CallFront – Récit de voyages sera projeté le jeudi 15 janvier 2026 à 18h à l’Auditorium Jacqueline Lichtenstein de l’INHA.
Cette projection publique propose un documentaire réalisé dans le cadre du projet CallFront. Tourné lors de missions de terrain au Maroc, en Chine et en Afrique de l’Ouest, ce film plonge le spectateur au cœur du travail de maîtres calligraphes rencontrés sur place. À travers leurs gestes et leurs récits, il révèle la richesse des traditions calligraphiques ainsi que les enjeux liés à leur transmission. L’événement invite à découvrir la diversité des pratiques et la vitalité contemporaine de la calligraphie en caractères arabes.
In April 2025, some of the CallFront team members, Eloïse Brac de la Perrière, Nuria Garcia Masip, Adeline Laclau, Nourane Ben Azzouna and I, traveled to the hometown of the Chinese calligrapher Haji Noor Deen, whose work has been central in defining and theorizing the ṣīnī script. (Fig. 1). The team was accompanied by Antoine Brendlen, the filmmaker associated with the CallFront project, whose role was to film the calligrapher in his studio. The very special architecture and decoration of some mosques in China were also recorded for scientific documentation of the project.
Figure 1. Map of Chanderi, Madhya Pradesh, India, Credits : Saarthak Singh
Strategically positioned within the forested hills of central India, the city of Chanderi in Madhya Pradesh offers an unparalleled view of epigraphic practices during the period of Sultanate rule (Fig. 1). Annexed from the Pratihāra kings, the city and hill fortress became the seat of a governorate (iqṭāʾ) under the Sultans of Delhi (1310–1398), and rapidly grew from a garrison town (qasba) into a capital city under the Sultans of Mandu (1401–1565). By the end of the 15th century, its urban topography comprised a citadel (qala‘), a castle (hiṣār), a walled town (shahr), and a walled suburb (bīrūn shahr) with numerous reservoirs, stepwells, mosques, caravanserais, and palatial garden estates. These urban foundations are documented by a voluminous corpus of inscriptions in Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, and Hindi languages, which provide one of the richest repositories for architectural calligraphy produced for a variety of patrons, places, and publics in the provinces of Hindustan.
As part of the CallFront project, a two-day workshop dedicated to epigraphic practices on the frontiers of the Islamic world was organized at INHA by Maxime Durocher (Sorbonne), Saarthak Singh (École française d’Extrême-Orient, Paris) and Vincent Thérouin (Sorbonne). The event was structured in two parts: a roundtable exploring writing and engraving techniques, followed by a conference bringing together an interdisciplinary panel of archaeologists, historians, and art historians. The conference focused on epigraphic practices across different geographic areas, including the Indo-Persian world, Anatolia, the Balkans, the Black Sea shores and the Iberian Peninsula[1].
Writing, Inscribing, Carving – From Calligraphy to Epigraphy (January 22nd)