Projects
Discursive Program
Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr’s 2018 report on The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage has sparked a broader conversation in Europe about colonialism. Institutions have started to engage with their colonial heritage and the looted objects in their collections, and governments are committing themselves to restitution. These are first steps towards a reappropriation of cultural heritage and decolonization. But how can this willingness to face the colonial past be used to intervene into a present that is firmly in the grips of what Cedric J. Robinson has called racial capitalism, describing capitalism as a system based on the exploitation of a racially constructed Other?
Taking the restitution debate as a point of departure, the workshops and conferences of the 12th Berlin Biennale’s discursive program convene scholars, activists, and artists to explore how colonialism and imperialism continue to operate in the present. Participants address the impact of Europe’s imperial expansion on the earth’s ecosystems. They discuss contemporary struggles and strategies around feminisms from the South. They examine how racism is backed by the cultural technologies and universalist ideals of the Enlightenment. They take up the issues of BIPoC who are living in the Global North and engage with antiracist practices as well as structures of solidarity. They ask how restitution can go beyond the material gesture of giving back cultural artifacts, and how action-oriented research can transform practices through “objects” contained in colonial collections. Finally, they illuminate how algorithmic governance (re)produces the same processes of racial ascription, immiseration, and exclusion that the digital revolution was meant to solve.
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
© Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Imperial Ecologies, 12. Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 22.6.–23.6.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
© Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Conference Whose Universal?, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Mathias Völzke
Panel Afrofeminisms. Bridging the Gap, Afrolution 2022, documentation, Each One Teach One (EOTO) e. V., 12. Berlin Biennale, 24.6.2022, photo: Muhammad Salah
Panel Afrofeminisms. Bridging the Gap, Afrolution 2022, documentation, Each One Teach One (EOTO) e. V., 12. Berlin Biennale, 24.6.2022, photo: Muhammad Salah
Panel Afrofeminisms. Bridging the Gap, Afrolution 2022, documentation, Each One Teach One (EOTO) e. V., 12. Berlin Biennale, 24.6.2022, photo: Muhammad Salah
Conference From Restitution to Repair, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, 10.–11.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference From Restitution to Repair, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, 10.–11.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference From Restitution to Repair, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, 10.–11.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference From Restitution to Repair, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, 10.–11.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference From Restitution to Repair, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, 10.–11.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference From Restitution to Repair, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, 10.–11.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference From Restitution to Repair, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, 10.–11.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Presentation and Performance Re-connecting “Objects”, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 9. and 14.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Presentation and Performance Re-connecting “Objects”, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 9. and 14.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Presentation and Performance Re-connecting “Objects”, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 9. and 14.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Presentation and Performance Re-connecting “Objects”, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 9. and 14.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Presentation and Performance Re-connecting “Objects”, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 9. and 14.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Presentation and Performance Re-connecting “Objects”, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 9. and 14.9.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference The Digital Divide, Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference The Digital Divide, Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference The Digital Divide, Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference The Digital Divide, Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference The Digital Divide, Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference The Digital Divide, Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Silke Briel
Conference The Digital Divide, Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2.7.–3.7.2022, photo: Silke Briel
The discursive program draws on the concept of repair as developed by curator Kader Attia in his artistic practice—first of objects and physical injuries, and then of individual and societal traumas. Throughout his practice, repair has emerged as a mode of cultural resistance, a form of agency that finds expression in diverse practices and fields of knowledge. Making this form of agency the starting point, the program involves contributors and audiences in a critical conversation, in order to find ways together to care for the now.
9.-11.6. and every Sunday from 12.6.2022 (except 3.7.; 17.7.; 7.8.; 21.8.; 4.9.; 11.9.)
Performance: Uriel Orlow: Reading Wood
10.6. and every Thursday from 16.6.2022 (except 21.7.)
Performance: Myriam El Haïk: Please Patterns
22.-23.6.2022
Conference: Imperial Ecologies
24.6.2022
Panel: Afrofeminisms. Bridging the Gap
24.6.2022
Workshop: The Laboratory of Restitution, Reinventing the Locus of the Return
2.-3.7.2022
Conference: Whose Universal?
2.7.; 6.8.; 3.9.; 16.9.; 17.9. and 18.9.2022
Performance: Zuzanna Hertzberg: Individual and Collective Resistance of Women During the Shoah
10.8.; 17.8.; 24.8.; 31.8.; 7.9. and 14.9.2022
Workshop: The Self and the Other – Culture on Bodies, Places, and Times
17.-18.8.2022
Workshop: How to Turn the Immaterial Tangible
19.8.2022
Workshop and Presentation: Recovering Features. Necessità dei volti – 5th Extension
22.-23.8.2022
Workshop: Trust
24.8.2022
Workshop: Embodied Knowledges, Pickled Perceptions
9./14.9.2022
Presentations: Re-connecting “Objects”
10.-11.9.2022
Conference: From Restitution to Repair
14.9.2022
Performance: Zuzanna Hertzberg: Jewish Anarchist Women against Hegemony
15.9.2022
Conference: The Digital Divide
Videos of the conferences are available here.
Curator: Kader Attia
Advisors: Ana Teixeira Pinto, Felwine Sarr, Rasha Salti, Françoise Vergès, Irit Rogoff, Jean Lassègue, Katrin Becker, Lukas Fuchsgruber, Paola Bacchetta, Ramak Molavi, Rolando Vázquez, Stefania Pandolfo, Tarek El-Ariss, Thomas Oberender, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson
The discursive program is realized in cooperation with several institutions and organizations: Afrolution Festival, Berlin; Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City, Berlin; Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin; La Colonie Nomade, Paris; Technische Universität Berlin