How ethnographers, curators and visitors to the museum continue to maintain colonial power relations.
(für deutsch hier klicken)
29th October, 2 p.m.
Lanstraße, in front of the main entrance of the ethnographic museum (U3 Dahlem-Dorf)
The ethnographic museum is a place, where colonial continuities become especially clear. Many artifacts were stolen during the time of colonialism or acquired in exploitative trade relations. In the museum these circumstances, however, are hardly ever mentioned.
Ethnographic exhibiting is based on a European perspective and it, therefore, has more to do with European imaginations rather than with the societies, which are presented in this museum. Through the exhibition of the objects themselves and the way in which they are
presented colonial and racist images of the white visitors are activated and confirmed.
In 2005 a new exhibition with the title “Kunst aus Afrika” has replaced the old “Africa exhibition”. The new one has more an art historic rather than an ethnographic approach. The curators try to overturn three of the following “prejudices”: the idea of “primitive art” is discarded, the assumption that there is only one kind of in the whole Africa is
criticized and the historic dimension of African art is acknowledged. But unfortunately it is not enough to present these racist assumptions as “superseded”. It is important to acknowledge that these prejudices still govern the thoughts of white Germans. It is still not mentioned that the objects originate from colonial times. In the new exhibition colonial power relations are even masked by using terms such as ”trade relations” The European perspective is also maintained, without mentioning it as such in the exhibition. Again art is defined from a European perspective and this definition is placed onto African art. In Berlin the exhibition was advertised with the slogan “only 15 minutes to
Africa”. This also expresses one of the fantasies of white people to be able to represent Africa in total.
In our anticolonial counter exhibition we try to embed German ethnography, the ethnographic museum and its exhibitions in their historical context. We are concerned with the role of ethnography and ethnographic exhibiting in German colonialism. But also the continuities of colonialism till now, the imperial gaze in which white visitors look
at the exhibitions, is a topic in our counter exhibition. There will be several presentation boards and stations for listening to collages based on interviews with visitors. Listeners shall be encouraged to think about racism and their own (white) position.
What do we want with this? One demand is to make it possible to return the stolen artefacts. We think that the museum is responsible for finding out their origin and who might want to have them back. But this is not enough. It is also important to deal with the continuities of colonialism till today. That provokes another demand: we want a museum that examines the colonial history of the exhibitions and the tradition
of ethnographic exhibitions themselves.
AG (...)
We are a group within the Antiracist Initiative Berlin e. V. The ARI has concentrated on institutional racism in the past, e.g. the policy of deportation. Our group was founded to deal more with the everyday racism in German society that partly has its roots in German colonialism. As a mostly white group we want to discuss, how we are involved in racist hierarchies. But it is also important to us not only to be occupied with ourselves but also to intervene in society.