Unexpected Lessons – Welcome Remarks

by Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Isabel Raabe, Jim Chuchu and Chao Tayiana

„The Western archive is exhausted!“ says Felwine Sarr. What can knowledge be today, beyond European knowledge systems? New perspectives and questions are needed in order to break up colonial thought patterns and challenge Eurocentric, white views that are deeply rooted in the European understanding of culture and knowledge and that continue to shape Europe's interaction with non-European cultures today, A new historiography is needed, different knowledge productions, an "epistemic disobedience", as the literary scholar Walter Mignolo calls it. This is preceded by an "Un-learning" and "Re-thinking" of Eurocentric perspectives of the world are part of this.

The performative discursive event »UNEXPECTED LESSONS - Decolonizing Memory and Knowledge« took place on 11th and 12th of June 2021 at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and in parallel in the urban landscape of Nairobi and in the world wide web.

Lectures, artistic elements, talks and discussions flow into each other and interweave with the live stream program from Nairobi. De-Westernization and African philosophy, Black Studies, knowledge systems in music, and a critical look at the Eurocentric narrative in art history play a role in the program.

Among others with sociologist and economist Felwine Sarr, art historian, curator and author Nana Oforiatta Ayim, art historians Malick Ndiaye and Bénédicte Savoy, sociologist Natasha A. Kelly and cultural scientist Peggy Piesche, philosopher Yala Kisukidi, artists Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, Syowia Kyambi and Elsa M‘bala, and a film program curated by visual anthropologist Nnenna Onuoha.

» please scroll right for the videos in English and German »

Mahret Ifeoma Kupka by Thabo Thindi.

UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Welcome Remarks – English

UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Welcome Remarks – German

Zurück