Martin Ambara / OTHNI: CHA-MAN

In the organizer's words:

A year ago, Cameroonian author and theater maker Martin Ambara set off on a research trip to Guinea to uncover the myth of the Charter of the Manden. According to this myth, King Sundiata Keita declared human rights in Guinea as early as the 13th century, seven hundred years before the European Declaration of Human Rights, in the form of the Charter of the Manden. So the idea of human rights comes from Africa, says Ambara. The colonial era largely erased the traces and memories of this, and the event was forgotten.

African history was preserved as oral history, in the telling of history. Martin follows this tradition and tracked down descendants of contemporary witnesses and spoke to them on his trip to Guinea. In his latest work, he wants to continue to tell - with theater, music and video - what the myth of the Charter of Manden is all about and why it can have enormous relevance for our coexistence, especially today, in times of major humanitarian crises. Not despite, but because of our differences, Cha-Man tells us what it is like to be human.