Conflicting Heritage
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| Admission: free admission |
| Ticket: no ticket required |
| Which languages: English, German |
| Venue: Ground Floor |
| Belongs to: Histories of Tanzania |
For years, activist groups have been calling for a critical examination of street names and places in which colonial ideologies are inscribed and criticizing gaps in the culture of remembrance. As part of the City Research project, pupils from both cities visited such places in Berlin and Dar es Salaam, made colonial traces visible in public spaces and documented them in the form of short films.
The project Tanzania Park Jenfeld from Hamburg also deals with colonial traces, critically questioning the history of the park and the ‘Askari Reliefs’ placed in a communial process with the residents of the district. The discussion will reflect on how colonized places can be negotiated and made productive using artistic and participatory means.
Talk with:
City Research Project, Steph Klinkenborg, Lena Koch, Flower Manase (inquired) and Jocelyne Stahl
Steph Klinkenborg (non-binary/no pronouns)
Sociologist and Cultural Manager from Hamburg
**”My father was a shipyard worker, my mother a shop assistant – my father was curious, and my mother was courageous. Thanks to them, I was the first in my family to attend university, choosing Sociology and Islamic Studies. I studied and worked for three years in the Sinai region of Egypt, where I learned Arabic and explored tribalism and the impact of tourism on Bedouin tribes.
Back in Germany, I dedicated myself to the idea of transforming society through culture. I pursued Cultural Management, hosted radio programs, directed the Women’s Music Center, and became an Executive Advisor for the FABRIK – the nucleus of socioculture in Germany. There, I learned to design projects that amplify and highlight the voices of the many.
In 2007, I started my own venture, inspired by the idea of using music as a quasi-universal language to bring hyper-diverse neighborhoods together through shared activities. Examples include the Musik von den Elbinseln network (mvde.de) and the Musik aus Jenfeld network (musik-aus-jenfeld.de).
In 2023, the Tansania Park Initiative was founded out of the Musik aus Jenfeld network. The so-called Tansania Park is a colonial-revisionist monument ensemble built by National Socialists, which is not yet open to the public.
With the support of experts and artists from Tanzania and Hamburg, we examine these monuments and their power dynamics from all possible perspectives. The aim is to develop a participatory vision of the park as a place of remembrance and learning.”**
Martin Baasch is a curator specializing in theater, performance, and visual arts. From 2007 to 2011, he worked as a dramaturge at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and then joined the Goethe Institute in West Africa in 2011, where he organized several exhibitions and festivals in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Zimbabwe. Starting in 2014, he co-directed the project Afropean Mimicry & Mockery with Congolese director Dieudonné Niangouna, funded by the TURN Fund of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. From 2014 to 2017, he served as the chief dramaturge of the multidisciplinary festival steirischer herbst in Graz.
Since 2021, he has been working at the Humboldt Forum, where he organized programs such as The Land Remembers, featuring films, performances, talks, and video and VR works by Indigenous Australian artists on the occasion of the special exhibition Songlines – Tracking the Seven Sisters. He also curated the project BIKUTSI 3000 by Cameroonian artist Blick Bassy. Together with Jacob Häberli, he curated the event program accompanying the exhibition History(ies) of Tanzania.