Struggle of Memory – Deutsche Bank Collection
AN EXHIBITION SUPPORTED BY THE EMBASSY OF SOUTH AFRICA IN BERLIN
April 19th, 2023
The exhibition is inspired by one of the most insidious consequences of the slave trade and European colonialism in Africa, which was the devaluing and dismantling of precolonial histories and cultures. The African artifacts in Western museums are symbols of the cultures that were robbed of their people and material heritage, ruthlessly subjugated, or gradually hollowed out and disassembled.
The first part of this exhibition, which will take place from April 19, 2023 to October 3, 2023 brings together artworks that explore, in different ways, how the body absorbs, processes, stores, and recalls experiences. Many of the artists exploit the gap between personal and official narratives, grappling with the precarity of memory and responding to histories of dislocation and loss. Working with fragments and traces, utilizing repetition and shadow play, stressing the importance of language in remembering and resisting, collapsing time, and encouraging us to employ all our senses to experience and remember, they explore the slippages between fact and fiction, imaginatively reconstructing connections to the past in the void left by history. The artists will include Anawana Haloba, Berni Searle, Kara Walker, Samuel Faso, Mohamed Camara, Lebohang Kganye, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Wangechi Mutu and Michael Subotzky.
The second part of the exhibition will be held from October 20, 2023 to March 11, 2024 including the following artists: Sammy Baloji, Yto Barrada, Anawana Haloba, Lubaina Himid, Paulo Nazareth, Zohra Opoku, Jo Ractliffe, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Alberta Whittle, and Wong Hoy Cheong.
