LA PALABRE #3

Telling Tales

»La Palabre« Six evenings on decolonial theory and practice TALKING OBJECTS LAB @Vierte Welt Adalbertstraße 96, 10999 Berlin July – December 2023 »La Palabre«: These are six evenings of decolonial theory and practice in Berlin-Kreuzberg, at the Vierte Welt at Kottbusser Tor, combining discussion and shared food. “La Palabre” refers to the social practice of public discourse, gathering, and conflict resolution in numerous countries on the African continent; the location is usually a baobab tree, l'arbre a palabre. “La Palabre” deals with themes that we have developed as part of the TALKING OBJECTS LAB over the past two years in symposia, talks, think tanks and artistic interventions. The impulse for each evening is an input from the TALKING OBJECTS LAB (texts, video performances or lectures), on which one or two Berlin artists or speakers, especially from the BIPoC communities, work and discuss together with the invited guests. For the fixed ritual of eating together, we invite cooks, artists, anthropologists, poets, and initiatives that deal with the cultural practice of eating, food and its colonial entanglements.

As long as the lion cannot write, the story is told from the hunter's point of view. What story(s) do we remember? How can collective memory be decolonized? Are collections, museums, archives, libraries still suitable as guardians of our memory? How do memory and trauma inscribe themselves in the body and mind?

Colonial resistance also means fighting against the erasure of memories and initiating healing processes. The TALKING OBJECTS LAB has repeatedly dealt with this topic: among others in the context of UNEXPECTED LESSONS #1 and most recently in the project Ré-Imaginer le passé, where we worked on the idea of the imaginary as a strategy to rethink the past.

How do Berlin artists* and initiatives deal with this topic? For the third “La Palabre” evening in Berlin we invite poet and activist Lahya Aukongo with her performance Ich erinnere mich an mich, Colombian artist, anti-colonial curator and Pina Bausch Fellow Martha Hincapié Charry as well as Anna Yeboah, the project coordinator at the Dekoloniale, who will introduce the Dekoloniale exhibitions. Talking Objects Lab curator Isabel Raabe will present the project Re-Imaginer le passé, which kicked off in Dakar this May. The evening will be moderated by Magnus Elias Rosengarten. And, as with every La Palabre evening, there will be food: curated snacks by the amazing Love Deluxe (Edwina Bishop and Bayo Adafin)––a menu fed by childhood memories, the cuisine of the U.S. South, the African diaspora and the South Pacific islands.

The event is primarily in German, with individual program points in English––and discussions taking place in both German and English.

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