»The Western archive is exhausted!«
Felwine Sarr
WHO ARE WE?
TALKING OBJECTS LAB is an artistic research project dedicated to the decolonization of memory and knowledge, unfolding in think tanks, symposiums, artistic interventions, and exhibitions over several years. The LAB accompanies the TALKING OBJECTS ARCHIVE, an archive for decolonial knowledge production. The curatorial team consists of members from Kenya, Senegal and Germany, the countries where the majority of our activities take place: currently Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Isabel Raabe, Malick Ndiayé, Njoki Ngumi and Chao Tayiana Maina.
WHAT DO WE DO?
- Challenging the Eurocentric Knowledge system and exploring plural forms and practices of knowledge of the African continent
- Learning from contemporary artists perspectives
- Acknowledging loss, gaps and missing narratives
- Re-evaluating objects as a body of knowledge
- Questioning classical museum forms of preservation and presentation
WHY?
- Breaking up colonial thought patterns
- Challenging Eurocentric views
- Practicing 'epistemic disobedience'
- Fostering decolonial curatorial and artistic practices
HOW?
Poly-perspectivity, breaking with hierarchies of knowledge and accepting that all knowledge is research in progress. Memory, too, is a process, dynamically generated out of the present, which means we will never arrive at something we can call a fact, but rather move through a dynamic network of multiple meanings and possible interpretations. We address the trauma and have a holistic approach to healing in the sense of making things whole.
LONG-TERM GOALS
In the long term, TALKING OBJECTS should contribute to a new ethics of relations between the Global South and the Global North.
The TALKING OBJECTS LAB wants to provide space for long-term research and collaborative learning by taking a long-term approach.
The TALKING OBJECTS ARCHIVE, planning to launch in 2024, seeks to break with euro-centric knowledge systems and visualize the poly-perspective nature of the knowledge by making the polyphonous body of knowledge around objects visible and accessible.