BLACK LAND, RED LAND – RESTITUTE

Interdisciplinary Festival

"BLACK LAND, RED LAND - RESTITUTE" is an interdisciplinary festival that critically explores museum and institutional dispositifs. It approaches artistically and discursively selected artifacts and narratives in the Egyptian Museums in Berlin, Germany and Turin, Italy.

From December 21 to 24, various artists will present and discuss their approaches with the audiencein silent green, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Palais am Festungsgraben and in public space.

The imperial scientific expeditions to Egypt in the 19th century served the European exploration of the African continent, this concerns both the documentation and the surveying of the country as well as the acquisition of cultural entities. The expeditions are in the context of colonial campaigns of conquest since the 16th century and transferred their own forms of knowledge and life to non-European territories.

Cultural and spiritual artifacts, parts of religious sites and human remains were exported from the countries as a result of these very "adventures". They were to fill the newly emerging museums as centers of presentation and knowledge production in various places in Europe, in Germany, Italy, France (and other parts of the world), as witnesses of the developments.

The differentiating sciences at this time invented the meanings of these artifacts and displayed them as "objects" of their disposal. Museums declared themselves universalist stewards of a "world cultural heritage" of humanity. Following their self-image, they grouped the executed artifacts into "collections" and presented them according to their own ideas.

Until today, only a small fraction of "mankind" has access to the European museums and large parts of the so-called societies of origin have never been able to visit the cultural and spiritual artifacts of their ancestors.

The debate about restitution, i.e. the return of artifacts to the countries of origin, which has been conducted publicly for some years now, if it is conducted in a dialogical manner, shows the complexity of the situation.

Who decides on the basis of which criteria about the restitution?

Where exactly is restitution made?

What reasons are given?

Who is excluded from the discussion - then as now?

And doesn't the discussion also serve to legitimize (post)colonial systems of knowledge and power? Who writes the stories?

And what is being overwritten with them, over and over again?

What do the works that became "Catastrophic Art" ("Catastrophic Art", Fazil Moradi) speak of?

The artistic-discursive search for erased and unavailable knowledge involves the museum archives and goes beyond them. The institutions are also spaces that herald the absolute usability of life.

Can a shared vision be imagined for the artifacts and entities beyond nation-state borders, for their traces and histories And can this carry into the future, this side and beyond death?

The artistic contributions of the festival are new productions and deal with ancient Egyptian entities, mythologies of non-Western antiquity or explore the relationship between social space, belonging and community.

In the discursive part, various patterns of argumentation and modes of action of museum institutions are discussed from both historical-critical and practical perspectives.

The festival will conclude with a roundtable discussion that will provide an outlook on the common future based on the theme of "commemoration".

Exhibition and Performances

• YARA MEKAWEI

• HANI MOJTAHEDY

• CEVDET EREK

• ATTILA CSIHAR

• LEA DRAEGER

• HOUAÏDA

Discourse

• FAZIL MORADI

• MONICA HANNA

• NORA AL-BADRI

• LÉONTINE MEIJER-VAN MENSCH

• SARAYA GOMIS

• JOHANNES AUENMÜLLER

• NN (National Museums in Berlin, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation)

• ELENA SINANINA

• YARA MEKAWEI

• YUNUS ERSOY

• OLIVER BAURHENN

• SANDEEP SODHI

• and "ÄM 53", a commemoration in public space

The events will be held in English. The final discussion on Dec. 28, 2023 will be translated consecutively into German.

Learn more: https://www.blackland.berlin/