Video documentation at the bottom.

May 02-31 Berlin

Exhibition + Talks + Performances

SPIRITUAL REVOLUTIONS & “THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA”

BE.BOP 2014. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS

http://spiritualrevolutionsandthescrambleforafrica.wordpress.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55443738@N08/sets/72157642533911953/

BE.BOP previous editions (2012-2013) have engaged European audiences in intricate detail with the outrage generated by Black/African Diaspora peoples when confronting a racist world order structured along the lines of coloniality. BE.BOP 2014 now brings re-existence into the hallowed grounds of healing by means of drawing the spiritual map of Pan-Africanism before and after the so-called “Scramble for Africa”. The event will include for the first time an exhibition and a simultaneous presentation in Copenhagen in connection to “Say it Loud!”, so far the largest overall presentation of Jeannette Ehlers’ videoworks at Nikolaj Kunsthal (15.03-25.05.2014).

Ehlers’ video “Whip it Good”, which premiered as a performance during BE.BOP 2013, will be projected in the Foyer of Ballhaus Naunynstrasse. The self-explanatory whipping action in Ehlers’ work brings up unsolved issues regarding enslavement in the Caribbean plantation system and the challenges of coloniality. These are concerns that have been discussed thoroughly at BE.BOP since its pioneering introduction of the theoretical perspective modernity/coloniality/decoloniality conceptualized by a group of thinkers and activists from the Americas, the Caribbean and the US Latino Diaspora in the 90’s.

In his keynote entitled “Spirituality, Subjectivity And (Im) Migrant Consciousness: The Tasks Ahead”, Walter Mignolo, one of the founders of this group and advisor of BE.BOP, will address how the combination of these entanglements has created the conditions for reversing migration movements: from the colonies and ex-colonies to Europe and the US.

Another extraordinary public lecture will be given by Dennis Dickerson with the title “Religious Insurgency and the Long Civil Rights Movement in the United States.” in the framekwork of the Du Bois Lectures organized by the English and American Studies Department, Humboldt University Berlin.

For the first time in Berlin, Héctor Aristizábal, an internationally known theater of the oppressed practitioner, will create a space for collective meditation after his 30 minutes performance “Nightwind”. Also premiering in Berlin, the moving-image work of Anika Gibbons, Sasha Huber, Joy Elias Rilwan and Jane Thorburn will be presented along the photo series “Platos para los Muertos” (Meals for the Dead) by Yoel Díaz Vázquez dedicated to the Orishas. The exhibition will open with “Poison”, a performance by Charo Oquet , who will involve the audience with her characteristic usage of colour and video projections as healing devices, opening the way to an unprecedented meeting which in the liberating tradition of performance art is free and open to the public.

In the compilation of moving image from previous editions with groundbreaking works by Adler Guerrier,Teresa María Díaz Nerio, Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet, Mwangi Hutter, Tracey Moffatt, Pascale Obolo and Caecilia Tripp, among others, the public will be able to appreciate how BE.BOP. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS continues its contribution to the radical imagination of European futures in which immigrants are becoming fundamental players.

A project of Art Labour Archives + Kultursprünge im Ballhaus Naunynstraße gemeinnützige GmbH

With the friendly support of Heinrich Böll Stiftung

Curated by Alanna Lockward

Exhibition May 02-31

Tuesday May 6

Du Bois Lecture by Dennis Dickerson

African-American Methodists and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement

In Cooperation with the English and American Studies Department, Humboldt University Berlin

Monday May 12

Opening and talk by Ylva Habel

Swedish Exceptionalism: the All-Out Moment

4 pm

Performance by Charo Oquet, Poison

5 pm

Tuesday May 13

Keynote by Walter Mignolo

Spirituality, Subjectivity And (Im) Migrant Consciousness: The Tasks Ahead

8 pm

Héctor Aristizábal, Nightwind

9 pm

Wednesday May 14

Artists’ Talks

11 am – 1 pm

John Akomfrah (UK+Ghana) + Kuratorisk Aktion + Héctor Aristizábal (USA+Colombia) + Lesley–Ann Brown (Trinidad+Denmark) + Artwell Cain (Netherlands+St. Vincent) + Wagner Carvalho (Germany+Brazi) + Mathias Danbolt (Denmark) +Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Netherlands+Dominican Republic) + Yoel Díaz Vázquez (Germany+Cuba) + Dennis Dickerson (USA) + Simmi Dullay (South Africa+Denmark) + Joy Elias-Rilwan (UK + Nigeria) + Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet (USA+Cuba) + Quinsy Gario (Netherlands+Curazao) + Anika Gibbons (USA) + Gillion Grantsaan (Denmark+Netherlands+Suriname) + Adler Guerrier (USA + Haiti) + Ylva Habel (Sweden) + Sasha Huber (Finland+Switzerland+Haiti) + Patricia Kaersenhout (Netherlands+Suriname) + Karen McKinnon (UK+USA) + Mette Moestrup (Denmark) + Tracey Moffatt (Australia) + Mekonnen Mesghena (Germany+Eritrea) + Mwangi Hutter (Germany+Kenya) + Pascale Obolo (France+Cameroon) + Temi Odumosu (Denmark) + Charo Oquet (USA +DominicanRepublic) + Anne Ring Petersen (Denmark) + Robbie Shilliam (UK) + Jane Thorburn (UK) + Caecilia Tripp (France+Germany) + Rolando Vázquez (Netherlands+Mexico)

Jeannette Ehlers + Guest Curator

Walter Mignolo + Advisor

Elena Quintarelli + Curatorial Assistance

Partners

Humboldt University Berlin + Center for Global Studies and the Humanities + Danish Film Institute + IDEA. Arts + Society + Transnational Decolonial Institute Nikolaj Kunsthal+ Statens Værksteder (The Danish Arts Workshop)+ Network for Migration and Culture

Media Partners

AfricAvenir +Reboot FM + Uprising Art + Afrikadaa

The event takes place in English. Free and open to the public.

COPENHAGEN

Exhibitions + Roundtable + Performances + Screenings

May 15-18

Danish Art Workshops + Nikolaj Kunsthal + Danish Film Institute

A project of Art Labour Archives + Kultursprünge im Ballhaus Naunynstraße gemeinnützige GmbH

In cooperation wtih Danish Art Workshops + Nikolaj Kunsthal + Network for Migration and Culture

With the friendly support of Heinrich Böll Stiftung

Curated by Alanna Lockward

BE.BOP previous editions (2012-2013) have engaged European audiences in intricate detail with the outrage generated by Black/African Diaspora peoples when confronting a racist world order structured along the lines of coloniality. BE.BOP 2014 now brings re-existence into the hallowed grounds of healing by means of drawing the spiritual map of Pan-Africanism before and after the so-called “Scramble for Africa”. The event will include for the first time an exhibition and a simultaneous presentation in Copenhagen in connection to “Say it Loud!”, Jeannette Ehlers’ first anthological exhibition at Nikolaj Kunsthal (15.03-25.05.2014).

Thursday May 15

Keynote by Walter Mignolo

Say it Loud!: Re-Existences, Re-Surgences and Re-Emergences

University of Copenhagen, Amager. In cooperation with Network for Migration and Culture

4-6 pm

Reception at Jeannette Ehler´s exhibition

Charo Oquet, Engungu in White, Peformance

8 pm

Friday May 16

Roundtable

The Danish Art Workshops (Statens Værksteder for Kunst)

11am – 3 pm

Screening of The Stuart Hall Project, by John Akomfrah

Danish Film Institute

4:45 pm

Saturday May 17

Performances

Nikolaj Kunsthal

Teresa María Díaz Nerio, Ni ‘Mamita’ Ni ‘Mulatita’ + Patricia Kaersenhout, On Guns and Needles

10 am – 12 pm

Quinsy Gario, A village called Gario + Héctor Aristizábal, Nightwind

3 pm – 5 pm

Sunday May 18

Roundtable

11am – 3 pm

The Danish Art Workshops (Statens Værksteder for Kunst)

Jeannette Ehlers + Guest Curator

Walter Mignolo + Advisor

Elena Quintarelli + Curatorial Assistance

Partners

Center for Global Studies and the Humanities + IDEA. Arts + Society

Transnational Decolonial Institute Nikolaj Kunsthal+ Statens Værksteder (The Danish Arts Workshop)+ Network for Migration and Culture

Media Partners

AfricAvenir + Reboot FM + Uprising Art + Afrikadaa

The event takes place in English. Free and open to the public, except the screening of John Akomfrah’s film.

After its outstanding debut last year, this second edition of the series BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS was expanded with live performances and an all-day screening commemorating Malcolm X´s birthday at the Hackesche Höfe Kino, in cooperation with AfricAvenir.

DECOLONIZING THE “COLD” WAR is the first Afropean performance showcase and was accompanied by roundtable discussions on the aesthetic legacy of the Black Power movement in the radical imagination of Diaspora artists. Parallel to this, its influence in liberation and decolonization struggles in the Global South during the so-called “Cold” War was approached from the continuities of coloniality. According to Enrique Dussel, a liberation philosopher and decolonial thinker, this war was never “cold” in the Global South.

We are witnessing a kind of global revivalism on documentary material on the Black Power movement (a good example is the release (2011) of Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, by Göran Olsson) and dozens of seminars and conferences are mushrooming all over Europe on the so called “Cold” War. In these hegemonic narratives the global South is usually considered as a mere recipient of Western imperialism.

During this festival, the story was told from the perspective of the self-affirmation of Black Power. The emblematic figure of Angela Davis created a planetary movement of solidarity that went beyond the term “Black Internationalism”. These narratives of re-existence were analyzed in relation to Frantz Fanon´s fundamental role in global South liberation struggles during that period. His interactions with Jean-Paul Sartre were the focus of some of these unprecedented debates. The worldwide solidarities resulting from the Black Power movement united people beyond racialization and political agendas. BE.BOP 2013 celebrated a paradigm shift that transformed the Black Body into a source of inspiration and beauty prevalent until today.

A Project of Art Labour Archives + Ballhaus Naunynstraße

In cooperation with AfricAvenir + Heinrich Böll Sitftung

Alanna Lockward + Curator

Walter Mignolo + Advisor

Artwell Cain (Netherlands+St. Vincent) + Vaginal Davis (Germany+USA) + Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Netherlands+Dominican Republic) + Gabriele Dietze (Germany) + Simmi Dullay (South Africa+Denmark) + Moritz Ege (Germany) + Jeannette Ehlers (Denmark+Trinidad) + Jihan El Tahri (Egypt+South Africa+France) + Cecilia Gärding (Sweden+South Africa) + Quinsy Gario (Netherlands+Curazao) + Adler Guerrier (USA+Haiti) + Neil Kenlock (England + Jamaica) + Grada Kilomba (Germany+Portugal+São Tomé e Principe) + Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi (Germany+Nigeria) + Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet (Cuba+Mexico+USA) + Karen McKinnon (England+USA) + Mekonnen Mesghena (Germany+Eritrea) + Dannys Montes de Oca (Cuba) + Ingrid Mwangi Robert Hutter (Germany+Kenya) + Pascale Obolo (France+Cameroon) + Horace Ové (England+Trinidad) + Robbie Shilliam (England) + Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (Rumania) + Caecilia Tripp (France+Germany) + Rolando Vázquez (Netherlands+Mexico)

Partners

Center for Global Studies and the Humanities + IDEA. Arts + Society

Transnational Decolonial Institute

Media Partners

AFROTAK TV cyberNomads + Reboot FM + Uprising Art + Afrikadaa

A Project of Art Labour Archives in collaboration with Allianz Kulturstiftung and Ballhaus Naunynstrasse

Alanna Lockward, Curator

José Manuel Barreto (England) /Manuela Boatca (Germany) / Artwell Cain(Holland) / Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Holland)/ Gabriele Dietze(Germany) / Simmi Dullay(South Africa) / Elvira Dyangani Ossé (Spain) /Jeannette Ehlers(Denmark) / Fatima El Tayeb(Germany) / Heide Fehrenbach(USA) / Quinsy Gario (Holland )/ Ylva Habel(Sweden) / Ulrike Hamann (Germany)/Grada Kilomba(Germany) / William Kentridge (South Africa)/ Michael Küppers-Adebisi(Germany)/ Rozena Maart(South Africa) / Tracey Moffatt(Australia) / IngridMwangiRobertHutter(Germany) / David Olusoga (England) / Minna Salami(England) /Robbie Shilliam(England) / Sumugan Sivanesan(Australia) / Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung(Germany) /Robert A. Stemmle † / Emeka Udemba(Germany) Rolando Vázquez(Holland)

Walter Mignolo, Advisor

BE.BOP 2012- BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS was the first international screening program and transdisciplinary roundtable centered on Black European citizenship in connection to recent moving image and performative practices. It was inaugurated at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, a translocal theatre space which serves as point of arrival for artists from (post) migrant communities and beyond, founded in 2008 by Shermin Langhoff with the support of Fatih Akin.

The framework of this meeting was circumscribed within decolonial theories which expose how the idea of citizenship is linked to current racializing configurations and hence with the limits of humanity. In that sense, the racial hierarchy of human existence, originating in the Renaissance and prescribed legally during the Enlightenment, established current (white-male-heteronormative-Christian-Western) European notions of who is Human and who is lower in that hierarchy, thereby designating citizenship, one of the most important legacies of modernity. The time-based positions discussed at this meeting were selected because they contest (racializing) fantasies on European citizenship.

By means of analyzing these narratives of re-existence, BE.BOP 2012 aimed at facilitating a long-term exchange between specialists in disciplines unrelated to visual arts and time-based art practitioners of different contexts of the Black European Diaspora. It successfully created multiple dialogues across the fields of history, legal studies, theatre, art and political activism.

This meeting was motivated and theoretically embedded to Decolonial Aesthetics and more specifically to Decolonial Diasporic Aesthetics, a term coined by curator, Alanna Lockward. In the spirit of the transformative and liberating qualities of performance art, this event was free and open to the public.

May 4-6, 2012

From 10:00 – 18:00

Free and open to the public

Ballhaus Naunynstrasse

Naunynstr. 27 / 10997 Berlin / + 49 (0) 30 75453725

presse@ballhausnaunynstrasse.de

Partners: Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University / DEFA Film Library / Digits Without Borders / Imagery Affairs / Goethe Institut / Goldsmiths University of London / Kwa-Zulu Natal Society of Arts / National Art Gallery of Namibia / Savvy Journal / Transational Decolonial Institute / The Bioscope Independent Cinema. Johannesburg / VideoArtWorld

Media Partners: AfricAvenir / AFROTAK TV cyberNomads / Exberliner / reboot.fm / Osvaldobudet.com

decolonial.institute(at)yahoo.com

VIDEO DOCUMENTATION

BE.BOP 2013. DECOLONIZING THE “COLD” WAR.

All videos edited and uploaded by Elena Quintarelli.

Monday May 20

DECOLONIZING AFROPEAN CITIZENSHIP: WRIGHT, BIKO, FANON AND SARTRE.

Artwell Cain + Grada Kilomba + Alanna Lockward + Walter Mignolo + Robbie Shilliam

Moderator: Rolando Vázquez

Artwell Cain. “‘The (Mis) representation of the Black in the Netherlands”.

Grada Kilomba. “Plantation Memories”.

Alanna Lockward. “Black Europe Body Politics. Towards an Afropean Decolonial Aesthetics”.

Walter Mignolo. “Decolonization of the ‘Cold’ War started with the Bandung Conference, 1955”.

Robbie Shilliam. “Colonial Amnesia and the Crisis of Europe”.

THE BLACK BODY IN THE EAST. BLACK POWER IN FORMER EASTERN EUROPE AND BEYOND.

Moritz Ege + Adetoun Küppers Adebisi + Dannys Montes de Oca

Moderator: Teresa María Díaz Nerio

Moritz Ege. “Afroamericanophilia. Popular Culture and the West German ‘New Left’.

Situating the 60’s”.

Adetoun Küppers Adebisi. “Fela and the Black Power Movement”.

Dannys Montes de Oca. “Ghosts in Scene”.

Tuesday May 21

DECOLONIZING THE “COLD” WAR: INTERNATIONALISM, BLACK EUROPE AND THE PANTHERS I.

Adler Guerrier + Jeannette Ehlers + Neil Kenlock & Barbara Gray + Caecilia Tripp

Moderator: Quinsy Gario

Adler Guerrier. Artist Presentation.

Jeannette Ehlers. Artist Presentation.

Neil Kenlock + Barbara Gray. “The Black Power Movement in Britain”.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

DECOLONIZING THE “COLD” WAR: INTERNATIONALISM, BLACK EUROPE AND THE PANTHERS II.

Simmi Dullay + Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet + Rolando Vázquez

Moderator: Walter Mignolo

Simmi Dullay. “Decolonial Art”.

Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet. Artist Presentation

Rolando Vázquez. “Decolonial AestheSis”.

PERFORMANCES

Monday May 20

Teresa María Díaz Nerio. “Hommage à Sara Bartman“.

Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet. “Mariposa Ancestral Memory”.

Tuesday May 21

Quinsy Gario & Muna Shirwa. “Canned Goat”.

Wednesday May 22

MwangiHutter. “Lacunae”.

Jeannette Ehlers. “Whip it Good”.

PERFORMANCE PRESENTED @ ART CENTER SOUTH FLORIDA (16.04.2014). COMMISSIONED BY ART LABOUR ARCHIVES. VIDEO DOCUMENTATION COURTESY OF ART IS ABOUT. http://artisabout.com/2014/04/18/whip-it-good-jeannette-ehlers-artcenter-south-florida/

Thursday May 23

Vaginal Davis. Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo – Vaginal Davis, Black Screen Images and the Notion of Freakiness

A Project of Art Labour Archives + Ballhaus Naunynstraße

In cooperation with AfricAvenir + Heinrich Böll Sitftung

Alanna Lockward + Curator

Walter Mignolo + Advisor

Artwell Cain (Netherlands+St. Vincent) + Vaginal Davis (Germany+USA) + Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Netherlands+Dominican Republic) + Simmi Dullay (South Africa+Denmark) + Moritz Ege (Germany) + Jeannette Ehlers (Denmark+Trinidad) + Jihan El Tahri (Egypt+South Africa+France) + Cecilia Gärding (Sweden+South Africa) + Quinsy Gario (Netherlands+Curazao) + Barbara Gray (England+Jamica) + Adler Guerrier (USA+Haiti) + Neil Kenlock (England + Jamaica) + Grada Kilomba (Germany+São Tomé e Principe+Portugal) + Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi (Germany+Nigeria) + Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet (Cuba+Mexico+USA) + Karen McKinnon (England + USA) + Mekonnen Mesghena (Germany + Eritrea) + Dannys Montes de Oca (Cuba) + Ingrid Mwangi Robert Hutter (Germany+Kenya) + Pascale Obolo (France+Cameroon) + Horace Ové (England+Trinidad) + Robbie Shilliam (England) + Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (Rumania) + Caecilia Tripp (France+Germany) + Rolando Vázquez (Netherlands+Mexico).

Partners

Center for Global Studies and the Humanities + IDEA. Arts + Society

Transnational Decolonial Institute

Media Partners

AFROTAK TV cyberNomads + Reboot FM + Uprising Art + Afrikadaa