OUT OF SAVVY:
Programme in commemoration of the Berlin Conference
PART I
Keynote Lectures with Simon Njami and Ann L. Stoler
Tuesday, 17th February 2015, 6pm
ICI Berlin - Institute for Cultural Inquiry
Christinenstraße 18-19 | 10119 Berlin
In the lecture “In the Heart of the Lights”, Simon Njami - curator of the exhibition WIR SIND ALLE BERLINER: 1884-2014 at SAVVY Contemporary - will deliberate on the concept of the exhibition and the role and importance of artistic and cultural interventions in the context of shifting historical discourses and investigating politics of memory.
Simon Njami is a writer and an independent curator, lecturer, art critic and essayist.
Ann L. Stoler's keynote lecture “Imperial Debris and Why it Matters Now” will set the framework of the discursive programme by redirecting the attention of critical engagement with colonial aftermaths towards the “less dramatic durabilities of duress” , the less visible and perceptible repercussions of imperial dispositions and the complex ways in which they shape not only the material but also the psychic space in which we live today. Stoler's shift of focus from “left over” relics (ruins) as evidence of the past to what we are “left with” - the ongoing process of ruination through which imperial power occupies the present - allows for an account of those subtle durabilities. She challenges established assumptions about the way colonial pasts and colonial presents relate to each other, about the remnants of empire that do not only persist, but also continue to be reanimated.
Stoler's lecture will take place against the backdrop of a Germany - and a Europe- that is experiencing protests and attacks against foreigners of an unforeseen magnitude and a sharpening of public anti-foreigner rhetoric. It will provide a crucial starting point to reflect upon the complexity of colonial presents and a basis to rethink contemporary socio-political developments in order to shift them.
Prof. Ann L. Stoler is the Willy Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research.
More details in our PRESS RELEASE
A Project by SAVVY Contemporary in Cooperation with ICI Berlin - Institute for Cultural Inquiry and Labor Kritische Europäisierungsforschung am Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Concept: Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with Elena Agudio, Anna Jäger, Saskia Köbschall
OUT OF SAVVY:
Programme in commemoration of the Berlin Conference
PART II
Keynote Lectures, Roundtable Discussion, Workshops, Performance, Concerts, Film Screenings
Thursday, 26th February - Sunday 1st March 2015
ICI Berlin - Institute for Cultural Inquiry
Christinenstraße 18-19 | 10119 Berlin
The discursive programme WIR SIND ALLE BERLINER: 1884-2014 commemorates 130 years of the Berlin Conference and proposes a space for deliberation on the repercussions of this crucial conference, offering thereby an occasion to analyse the ideological, economic, political, and humanitarian justifications that underlay colonialism and still frame the asymmetric relations between the West and the non-West today. The accompanying programme to the eponymous exhibition will consist of keynote lectures, roundtable talks, screenings and workshops with students, as well as performances and concerts. Outstanding thinkers and artists will deliberate on the history of the Berlin Conference, as well as reflect on strategies of (non-) remembering.
November 2014 marked the 130th anniversary of the Berlin Conference and the official partitioning of Africa by Western (European, North American and Ottoman) colonial forces – in absence of African representatives. Against this backdrop, the exhibition WIR SIND ALLE BERLINER: 1884-2014 recalls this determining moment in world history and its severe and ongoing repercussions, as well as it reflects upon Berlin’s historical and contemporary bond to Africa.
The exhibition and the accompanying discursive programme offer a critical knowledge sharing platform on the Berlin Conference, on past and current socio-political and economic phenomena in a Europe of flourishing nationalism and racism, as it deals with issues like migration flow or border and identity politics.
The symposium as well as the workshops will address the political, cultural, economical and psychological consequences of this event of systematized colonialism, which still echo in various forms in our contemporary.
MORE DETAILS SOON!
A Project by SAVVY Contemporary in Cooperation with ICI Berlin | Institute for Cultural Inquiry and Wolf Berlin | Centre for Film and Cinema in Berlin-Neukölln
Concept: Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with Elena Agudio, Anna Jäger, Saskia Köbschall
A Commemoration of the Berlin Congo Conference
An Exhibition curated by Simon Njami
15th November 2014 – 28th February 2015
Finissage & Symposium: 26-28th February 2015
SAVVY Contemporary | Richardstr. 20 | 12043 Berlin-Neukölln
Opening Hours: Saturdays & Sundays 2 - 6pm
Guided Tours: Each Sundays at 4 pm (3/5 Euros)
Participating artists: Kader Attia, Sammy Baloji, Bili Bidjocka, Filipa César, Mansour Ciss, Theo Eshetu, Satch Hoyt, Cyrill Lachauer, Nadia Kaabi Linke, Henrike Nauman, Thabiso Sekgala, Katarina Zdjelar
This exhibition is dedicated to Thabiso Sekgala (1981-2014).
November 2014 marks the 130th anniversary of the Berlin Congo Conference and the official partitioning of Africa by Western (European, North American and Ottoman) colonial forces – in absence of African representatives. It is against this backdrop that the exhibition WIR SIND ALLE BERLINER: 1884-2014 reminisces this determining moment in world and its severe and ongoing repercussions and history and reflects upon Berlin’s historical and contemporary bond to Africa.
The exhibition proposes a space for deliberation on the repercussions of this conference on past and current socio-political and economic phenomena in a Europe of flourishing nationalism and racism, as it deals with issues like migration flow or border and identity politics.
When J.F. Kennedy uttered “Ich bin ein Berliner” in the divided Berlin of 1963 he expressed what was clearly a political position but even more so, he formulated a humanist statement aspiring to dismantle the borders erected by the Cold War. With the Berlin Conference of 1884 as point of departure we go back over these immanent tensions and transpose them to present times. Kennedy’s assertion was intended to widen our humanity to something beyond national existentialism and is thus clearly opposed to the positions taken by the Western nations which gathered around the African continent's map as if before a chessboard.
The European collaboration has never functioned as well as during the organization of the Berlin Conference which took place from November 15th 1884 until February 26th 1885. Organized by Bismarck and initiated by Portugal whose main purpose was to communicate its territorial complaints to certain European countries, the conference resulted in the division of Africa among the colonising nations who, after the discovery of the Transvaal diamond mines in 1867, had just come to notice that the continent abounded with natural resources of which they needed to get a hold. Besides Germany and Portugal, the other participants were Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, the Suedo-Norwegian Union and the United States. The purpose of the reunion was essential at a time when quarrels between colonisers had a negative impact on trade and European relations. Fourteen occupying powers thus take part in a debate where the main parties involved, the Africans, are excluded. Beyond the immorality and cynicism that presided at that conference, WIR SIND ALLE BERLINER: 1884-2014 is interested in both the exclusion and absence of the African people. Not in a sense of claim (one cannot rewrite history) but in the perspective of a new light being shed on the Conference with contemporary terms.
What hasn't been said explicitly about this conference is that, while it altered the contours of the African continent, it also changed Europe!
WIR SIND ALLE BERLINER: 1884-2014 intends to look at how this conference, despite the absence of the African protagonists, allowed Africa to modify Europe. We will address the signs of those changes in the city of Berlin by inviting artists to reflect on the ebb and flow phenomenon inherent to all colonial systems as well as the migratory movements to and in Europe up to today. Departing from absence, how have these players been able to attain presence and, in some extreme cases, hyper-presence? What is the nature of the negotiation initiated with the “welcoming country”? And how can that same country define and evaluate itself by the yardstick of the past. How does it look at these subjects that, in the end, are just ordinary citizens from overseas? And, after seeing the German pavilion in the last Venice Biennial, how would we define the German identity: In a rigid and historical way, stagnating with Wagner and Goethe, or in a rather fluid and more contemporary sense? The city of Berlin, who hosted the conference, is obviously the most appropriate location for this discussion that goes beyond the borders of the German territory and includes all the countries that took part in the conference. The debate on nationality and citizenship that is occupying an increasingly important place in Europe deserves to be addressed from the standpoint of the Other, “the intruder”.
© www.briefmarken-sieger.de
This is what this project intends to do.
SAVVY Contemporary is pleased to present on this occasion the participatory research project Colonial Neighbours: Colonial Neighbours investigates Germany's colonial past, and its ongoing impact upon the present by creating a public and living archive that consists of stories, objects, and other traces connected to German colonialism. Further details under: colonialneighbors.wordpress.com
Curator: Simon Njami
Artistic directors: Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung & Elena Agudio (SAVVY Contemporary)
Artistic coordination: Lucie Touya (L'Agence à Paris)
Media partner: Contemporary And
