'THE STRUGGLE OF MEMORY' PALAIS POPULAIRE / DEUTSCHE BANK COLLECTION - BERLIN

‘I have arisen from my egg which is in the lands of the secrets. I give my mouth to myself (so that) I may speak with it in the presence of the gods of the Duat. My hand shall not be turned away from the council of the great god Osiris, Lord of Rosetau, this one who is at the top of the dais. I have come (so that) I may do what my heart desires in the Island of Fire, extinguishing the fire which comes forth.’

[Extract from Chapter 22: Declaration of power/ An Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead/ The Papyrus of Sobekmose]

Variations 3 + 2AP, 212x156cm, Screenprint on linen & vintage linen sack, hand stitched |2020

THE STRUGGLE OF MEMORY

PALAIS POPULAIRE

October 06, 2023 – March 11, 2024

Berlin, Germany

“The first step in liquidating a people … is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture,its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.“ 
– Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1980

Societies require continuity and connection with the past to preserve social unity and cohesion and people need to know where they come from to be able to adjust to the circumstances of the present and challenges of the future. One of the most insidious consequences of the slave trade and European colonialism in Africa 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.

Restitution is only one step in a long journey toward the reconstruction of memory and cultural self-reinvention. Artists are taking other steps, mining family archives, highlighting individual stories, recuperating lesser-known histories, imagining different power dynamics, and constructing alternative narratives.

Curated by Kerryn Greenberg, Independent Curator and Co-Director New Curators

The Struggle of Memory Part 1:  April 19 – October 3, 2023
The Struggle of Memory Part 2: October 20, 2023 – March 11, 2024