Opening of the Dekoloniale Festival 2024 and vernissage of the decentralized joint exhibition in the Museum Nikolaikirche
Grand opening of the Dekoloniale Festival 2024 and vernissage of the joint decentralized exhibition “Dekoloniale – what remains?!” by the cooperation partners Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City and the Stadtmuseum Berlin, featuring festive speeches and a musical program.
The Museum Nikolaikirche is hosting the group exhibition “Colonial Ghosts – Resistant Spirits. Church, Colonialism, and Beyond” by the five guest artists of the Dekoloniale Residency 2024. The curatorial team presents the historical exhibition “Inscribed. Colonialism, Museum, and Resistance”.
These two exhibitions of “Dekoloniale - what remains?!” explore Berlin’s involvement in the global history of slavery and colonialism over centuries, highlighting the largely unrecognized actions of resistance figures.
Speakers: Nadja Ofuatey-Alazard, Sophie Plagemann & Paul Spies, Christine Regus, Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska, Kurator*innen & Künstler*innen, curators and artist residents
Performance: Felisha Carenage & Moko Jumbies
Sound Performances: Yudania Gómez Heredia, Theresa Weber w/ Tiffani Achilleas & Maia Joseph, DJ Zhao & Matchume Zango
“Dekoloniale – what remains?!” is a joint project by Berlin Postkolonial e.V., Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V. and the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD-Bund e.V.), the learning and remembrance space Kolonialismus Erinnern [Remembering Colonialism], and the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin in the context of the model project Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City. The project is funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt [Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion] and the Kulturstiftung des Bundes [German Federal Cultural Foundation].
Body of Blues - Performance by Theresa Weber w/ Tiffani Achilleas & Maia Joseph
At the opening and within the course of the exhibition, there is going to be a collaborative performance taking place at Nikolaikirche. This includes a 15 minute long site-specific sound piece by sound artist Nathanael Amadou Kliebhan, who uses historical and site-specific sound recordings, as well as abstracted electronically influenced sounds that are being woven together in his composition. Two dancers, Maia Joseph and Tiffani Achilleas, are going to wear blue costumes that symbolically mark the body as infinitely transforming rhizomatic network and can be seen as an extension of the blue fabric installations by Dekoloniale resident Theresa Weber on site. Through improvisation, the dancers are going to interact with the soundscape. This performance is going to be shaped by feelings of dissonance and nostalgia, as well as transformation and self-empowerment.