Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City
Although not always visible, the colonial past is omnipresent. This can also be said about the reverberations of the colonialism that emanated from Germany into the world. Berlin wants to face its responsibility as former colonial metropolis and capital of the German Reich. This is the reason why we have started the Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City in January 2020 as cultural project to critically deal with the history of colonialism and its consequences.
The model project traces back to an initiative of four member organisations of the civic alliance Decolonize Berlin e.V. and the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. The Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation could be attracted as a cooperation partner. The project is thus significantly upheld by stakeholders who for years have been committed to achieving a critical appraisal of colonialism by the city of Berlin.
Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City perceives colonialism as a system of injustice, which always met with the resistance of the colonised people. The project picks up on the ever louder demands for a consistent change of perspective in the post-colonial memory culture. Instead of colonial and colonial-racist stakeholders, from now on the victims and opponents of colonial racism and exploitation are to receive attention and appreciation.
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As a participatory solidarity project of historical-political education, we have set ourselves the goal of working with experts and activists worldwide to explore the past and present of the (anti-)colonial in Berlin, in the rest of Germany and in Germany's former colonies explore and make visible online. Colonial history is always also a global history of entanglements: histories of life, places, objects and institutions connect Europe with Africa, Asia, Oceania, Australia and America.
Using the example of Berlin, Dekoloniale of Memory Culture in the City tests how a metropolis, its space, its institutions and its society can be examined on a broad level for (post-)colonial effects, how the invisible can be experienced and the visible can be irritated. The participatory cultural project is aimed at a broad and diverse urban society. It not only questions individual actors or fields - such as museums - about their (post-)colonial realities. During the project period, Dekoloniale mobilizes the entire city with its own activities and supporting cooperation.
Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City is a joint project of Berlin Postkolonial eV , Each One Teach One - EOTO eV , Initiative Black People in Germany - ISD-Bund eV and the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin . The state network Berlin Development Policy Advice - BER eV supports the project as a partner. In addition, we cooperate closely with the German Museum of Technology and the Berlin district museums in Treptow-Köpenick, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and Berlin-Mitte. The project is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
sub-areas
Dekoloniale [hi]stories
Dekoloniale [re]presentations
Dekoloniale in[ter]ventions
project room
Wilhelmstrasse 92
The project space of Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City is located at Wilhelmstr. 92 in Berlin between the former sites of the Reich Chancellery and the Foreign Office, where the envoys of the European powers, the USA and the Ottoman Empire met at the invitation of the German Empire and the Republic of France for the Berlin Africa Conference in 1884/85. Under the chairmanship of the Reich Chancellor Otto v. Bismarck, they agreed there on the rules for the colonial division and exploitation of the African continent.
The recovery of this historical place is of the utmost importance for Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City and the starting point for a new, collaborative and decentralized examination of German colonialism. The rooms in Wilhelmstr. 92 are used together with the Alliance Decolonize Berlin eV.
team
who we are
Anna Yeboah
General coordination
Maike Pertschy
Commercial management
Nadja Ofuatey-Alazard
Dekoloniale in[ter]ventions
Christian Kopp
Dekoloniale [hi]stories
Dekoloniale [re]presentations
Ibou Diop
Dekoloniale development[s]
Tahir Della
Dekoloniale development[s]
Melissa Makele
Managing Editor Publications
Desirée Desmarattes
Subproject Coordination Dekoloniale in[ter]ventions
Noor-Cella Bena
Subproject Coordination Dekoloniale in[ter]ventions
Mirja Memmen
Subproject Coordination Dekoloniale [hi]stories
Jana Sauer
Project assistance
Deiara Kouto
Project assistance
Yohanna Berhe
Project assistance
B'net Nadya Rahal
Project assistance - Dekoloniale in[ter]ventions
project group
Advisory Board
members
Prof. Dr. Iman Attia
Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin
dr Manuela Bauche
Free University of Berlin
dr Memory Biwa
University of Namibia, Windhoek
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Conrad
Free University of Berlin
Prof. Dr. Albert Gouaffo
University of Dschang
Sabine Herrmann
Federal Archive Koblenz
dr Noa K.Ha
German Center for Integration and Migration Research, DeZIM
Léontine Meijer-van Mensch
State Ethnological Collections of Saxony
Prof. Wayne Modest
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Paulette Reed Anderson
Center for African Diaspora Research in Germany, Berlin
Sylvia Werther
Berlin Development Policy Advice, BER