{"id":160821,"date":"2026-03-09T12:42:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.humboldtforum.org\/?post_type=event&p=160821"},"modified":"2026-03-25T16:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:35:15","slug":"of-interest-to-the-general-public-by-maaza-mengiste","status":"publish","type":"event","link":"https:\/\/www.humboldtforum.org\/en\/programm\/termin\/literature\/of-interest-to-the-general-public-by-maaza-mengiste-160821\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Interest to the General Public"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1868, Ethiopia: the British Napier expedition, the burning and looting of Magdala. A German collector. A young African boy. A stunning royal Ethiopian mantle. Maaza Mengiste reimagines their journeys \u2013 out of battle, through fire, over mountains to cross the waters into Berlin. The story of a name remembered, a life revived, a secret unveiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery object holds the story of a disappearance. Every disappearance carries the story of a human.\u201d From this insight, Maaza Mengiste\u2019s extraordinary new work for Objects Talk Back<\/em> unfurls a series of heart-stopping questions:<\/p>\n

What is an object? What is a human?<\/p>\n

Who decides what is an object?<\/p>\n

What is of interest to the general public<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Who is the public<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Of Interest to the General Public<\/strong><\/em> is a multi-media work informed by the history of the 1868 Napier expedition and the archives of Berlin\u2019s Ethnological Museum. Like all Mengiste\u2019s work, it unfolds at the intersections of the dead and the living, of literature and photography, of official history, hidden records and silenced testimony.<\/p>\n

Maaza Mengiste, Ethiopian writer and photographer, who currently lives in New York,<\/em> came to explore the African collections on display at the Humboldt Forum and ended up intrigued by an object hidden in the depot, a name erased from the records, a possibility refuted in the museum. With Of Interest to the General Public<\/strong><\/em>, now published as a book, <\/strong>Mengiste invites us into a space of astonishing encounters, rich, glimmering and unforgettable as the gold silver threads of the mantle.<\/p>\n

The event will include a short screening and reading by Maaza Mengiste, then a conversation with curator Priya Basil, and audience questions followed by book signing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

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