The Time For Denial Is Over - Berlin

Transnational Restitution Movement
CTM Festival

3. & 4. Februar 2023
HAU2, Hallesches Ufer 34, 10963 Berlin

3.Februar 15:00 – 18:00 > TICKET
4.Februar 15:00 – 18:00 > TICKET

Events in English and French with simultaneous translation into English.
German Version > here

Since the 1960s, a movement of artists, intellectuals, and activists over the globe, has persistently advocated for the restitution of robbed African cultural heritage and Ancestral Remains to advance the process of post-independence decolonisation. After a long period of stagnation, the debate has accelerated over the recent years, with examples of physical restitution such as the Béhanzin treasures to the Republic of Benin, or the Benin bronzes to Nigeria. Countless initiatives by artists and cultural institutions have emerged worldwide to advance and accompany this restitution process. At this historic moment, GROUP50:50 invites artists, activists, and intellectuals from Europe and Africa to further discuss the foundations for a transnational restitution movement.

Following encounters in Palermo and Leipzig, they will discuss the significance of intangible cultural heritage and music for the restitution process in a series of lectures, performances, and screenings in Berlin. What happens to all the knowledge and music extracted by missionaries, ethnographers, salesmen, and officials of the colonial powers, that have been locked away in European archives? How can they be made accessible again for people in the African countries and regions whose heritage they represent? How can the musicians and artists working between continents deal with this heritage? And how can we prevent the same mechanisms of violent extraction and appropriation of knowledge and cultural practices from being reproduced in a different form today?

Curated by GROUP50:50 in collaboration with CTM Festival, PODIUM Esslingen, Centre d'Art Waza Lubumbashi, and Fondazione Studio Rizoma Palermo.

February 3rd, 3 p.m – 4:30 p.m, HAU2
WHO IS THE THIEF, WHO IS THE OWNER?

Moderation: Eva-Maria Bertschy

Regarding cultural objects and Ancestral Remains in European museums, private collections, and university archives, a whole series of complex legal questions arise. Who is the owner of the objects? Are they objects at all or are they humans? Were they expropriated, taken by force, or legally acquired? To whom should they be returned?

Because essential information is often missing to clarify these questions, many argue for the status quo. How do questions of ownership relate to the cultural rights and human rights of dispossessed peoples? In the course of restitution, the legal premises of our current world order are also subjected to a decolonial critique.

Following a short film screening will be short talks by Congolese activist Mwazulu Diyabanza (Multicultural Front Against Looting) and researcher Sarah Imani (ECCHR), moderated by Eva-Maria Bertschy.

YOU HIDE ME (1972, 16 min), NII-KWATE OWOO – screening

In 1970, Ghanaian filmmaker Nii Kwate Owoo obtained permission, with a twist, to shoot a film for one day in the archives of the British Museum. In 1971, the film, titled »You hide me« was banned in Ghana as »anti-British,« which caused a great uproar. More than half a century later, »You hide me« was awarded the prize for best documentary at the Paris Short Film Festival in 2020. The film ends with the sentence: »We the people of Africa and of African descent, demand that our works of art which embody our history, our civilisation, our religion, and culture, should be immediately and unconditionally returned to us.«

MWAZULU DIYABANZA – talk

Mwazulu Diyabanza is a Congolese activist and founder of the Multicultural Front against Looting.

In 2020, he attempted to steal objects from European museums and return them to the regions and communities from which they were taken. In his speech for »The Time For Denial Is Over« in Palermo in June 2022, he asked the question: »Who is the thief?.« In Berlin, he follows up with a counter-question: »Who is the owner?«

SARAH IMANI – talk

Sarah Imani is a lawyer and researcher. Her work and research focus on international law, international criminal law and human rights, and international legal theory.

She is a Legal Advisor at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)'s Institute for Legal Intervention, where she works on cases of German and European colonial crimes and on postcolonial critiques of law. The ECCHR was founded in 2007 by international lawyers to confront human rights violations with legal means.

Eva-Maria Bertschy

works as a freelance dramaturge at the intersection of theatre and political activism in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, and D.R. Congo.

She is a founding member of Group50:50 and artistic director of Studio Rizoma in Palermo. With the Swiss director Milo Rau, she has conceived and directed numerous productions, international theater and documentary projects. She also collaborates regularly with the Berlin-based director Ersan Mondtag.

Followed by a discussion with the public.

3. Februar 23, 16:45 – 18:30 Uhr, HAU2,
THE RESTITUTION OF INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE (ENG)

Moderation: Patrick Mudekereza

In addition to cultural artefacts and Ancestral Remains, ethnographers, art collectors, and missionaries in the former colonies have also recorded and collected music and other intangible cultural heritage in order to make it available to European museums and universities for research purposes. So far, these have received little attention in the current restitution debate. How can these recordings be made accessible to artists, musicians, and researchers, but also to the local communities whose cultural heritage they represent? How can they be reappropriated? And how do we deal with the knowledge and representations that reproduce colonial violence?

A short screening will be followed by a conversation between film director Christian Nyampeta and Director of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art in BerlinLars-Christian Koch, moderated by writer and curator Patrick Mudekereza.

SOMETIMES IT WAS BEAUTIFUL (2018, 40 min), CHRISTIAN NYAMPETA – screening

Christian Nyampeta’s film is about a meeting between an improbable group of friends, who gather to watch »I fetischmannens spår« (In the Footsteps of the Witch Doctor), one of the six films that the Swedish cinematographer Sven Nykvist made about the Congo between 1948 and 1952. Postcolonial luminaries, a filmmaker, and a high ranking royal of a former colonial empire talk about the »traces of a history that is filled with pain« and the »balance of composition.«

PATRICK MUDEKEREZA, CHRISTIAN NYAMPETA, LARS-CHRISTIAN KOCH – conversation

Prof. Dr. Lars-Christian Koch
Lars-Christian Koch is Director of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin, and Director for the Collections of the National Museums in Berlin at the Humboldt Forum.

He is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Cologne and Honorary Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Berlin University of the Arts, and led the research project »Indexing and Digitisation of the Sound Recordings of the Prussian Phonographic Commission 1915-1918.« His research revolves around instrumentology with a special focus on instrument making, Buddhist music, popular music and urban culture, and historical sound recordings.

Christian Nyampeta
Christian Nyampeta is artist, filmmaker and writer and works in New York, London, the Netherlands and Rwanda.

He organizes programs, exhibitions, screenings, performances, pedagogical experiments, and publications, which are conceived as hosting structures for collective feeling, cooperative thinking, and mutual action. Nyampeta is a member of the Board of Directors at The Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, and a board member of November Magazine, also in New York.

Patrick Mudekereza
Patrick Mudekereza is a writer and curator.

He is the founder and artistic director of the Centre d'art Waza, a unique independent art centre in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. He co-founded and directed the first three editions of Rencontres Picha, the Biennale de Lubumbashi. He is co-founder of GROUP50:50 and co-author of »The Ghosts Are Returning.«

Followed by a discussion with the public

February 4th, 3 p.m – 5 p.m, HAU2
TOWARDS NON EXTRACTIVE PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC.

Moderation: Elia Rediger

To this day, musicians from the Global North appropriate music from countries in the Global South and achieve great financial and professional success with it, while the musics’ creators or the cultures of origin receive neither attention nor recognition. In doing so, Western artists disregard the musicians' copyrights, which cannot be enforced due to a lack of legal foundations or appropriate collection societies. Thus, extractive practices of ethnomusicologists during the colonial period, who served the European archives, continue. How can new forms of collaboration develop and foster an equal and inspiring exchange?

The sound artist Joseph Kamaru aka KMRU will present a talk and listening session examining his work, »Temporary Stored« in which the artist questions the significance of sound archives for the history of colonial violence. Using synthesiser sounds, field recordings, and recordings from the archives of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, he sets out to reappropriate the sounds that were stolen.

Following the presentation, curator Pamela Owusu-Brenyah and composer and musician Kettan Bhatti present short talks moderated by GROUP50:50 co-founder Elia Rediger.

TEMPORARY STORED, JOSEPH KAMARU (KMRU) – Listening and talk

Joseph Kamaru aka KMRU is a Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist whose work is grounded on the discourse of field recording, noise, and sound art.

His work posits expanded listening cultures of sonic thoughts and sound practices, a proposition to consider and reflect on auditory cultures beyond the norms, and an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations, and performances. In 2020 he released Peel on the avant-garde label Editions Mego with follow up albums Opaquer, Jar, and logue, each on different labels. His releases have been praised by outlets such as Resident Advisor, DJ Mag, NPR, and Bandcamp. His works have been presented at NyegeNyege Festival, CTM Festival, Atonal, GAMMA, and Mutek.

In 2022 KMRU collaborated with the London Contemporary Orchestra at the Barbican, and went on a solo tour in the US with Fennesz, and in the UK and Europe with Big Thief.

PAMELA OWUSU-BRENYAH – talk

Pamela Owusu-Brenyah is a curator and festival organiser. With her work she promotes the visibility of Afro-pop culture and artists of African descent.

She founded the platform AFRO x POP and the festival of the same name to give the Afro-German music scene a stage and to build bridges between Germany and the African continent.

KETAN BHATTI – talk

Ketan Bhatti, born 1981, works as a composer and percussionist between genres.

His work ranges from contemporary chamber music to experimental music and dance theatre, stage and film music, and electronic hip-hop-based productions. Together with his brother Vivan Bhatti, he composes musical theatrer pieces that pose questions about integration and exclusion. His works have been performed at the Neuköllner Oper, Tischlerei - Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Staatsoper Hannover, and many more.

Elia Rediger

Born in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Swiss artist, composer, playwright, and singer has written orchestral compositions and was frontman of the pop group The Bianca Story.

While known for albums featuring narrative and vocals, Rediger is also a founder of the Group2030 – which investigates ideas about the future as manifested in contemporary projects – has curated a late-night programme for Deutsche Oper’s 2019-20 season, was part of the Konzerttheater Bern, and took part in the Big Band-Orchesters Brigade Futur3.

With collaborator Dorine Mokha, Rediger countered the current dystopian climate by creating new, futuristic imagery in contemporary documentary and speculative post-colonial music theater. Through their productions Oh Boyoma. and Hercules of Lubumbashi, they explored art's ability not only to formulate critique, but to envision concrete solutions or alternatives to current conflict situations. After Mokha passed away, Rediger continues the legacy with Group 50:50, another collaborative project.

Followed by a discussion with the public

February 4th, 5:15 p.m – 6 p.m
THE USE OF MUSIC FOR A DECOLONIAL CULTURE OF REMEMBRANCE (FR/ENG)

Moderation: Patrick Mudekereza

Music plays a central role in the ritual practices interwoven with cultural artifacts in European museums, as well as in the inhumation of Ancestral Remains formerly stored in museums and university archives. How can contemporary musicians accompany the restitution of cultural artifacts and Ancestral Remains and participate in a decolonial culture of memory in European and African cities?

Following a performance, the musicians Fabrizio Cassol and Kojak Kossakamwe speak with writer and curator Patrick Mudekereza.

FABRIZIO CASSOL AND KOJACK KOSSAKAMVWE – performance and conversation

Fabrizio Cassol

Fabrizio Cassol is a Belgian jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger.

His album Requiem pour L. – a world music adaptation of Mozart's Requiem for accordion, guitar, bass, percussion, euphonium and lamella harp, performed by seven singers in five African languages and Latin - was placed on the Best List of the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2019.

Kojack Kossakamwe

Kojack Kossakamwe is a jazz musician and guitar virtuoso from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With polyrhythmic genius he combines jazz and traditional Congolese sounds and the popular Congolese rumba. Spiritual connection to music and sound plays a significant role in his work. He was involved in the composition of many pieces for Requiem pour L. and was on stage as a guitarist. For »The Ghosts Are Returning« he does the musical direction together with Elia Rediger.

PATRICK MUDEKEREZA (CD)

see bio above