Acts of Opening Again: A Choreography of Conviviality

Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin re-opens from June 2–4, 2023 with a series of blessings, concerts, lectures, offerings, performances, processions, readings, and rituals as well as the launch of the exhibition project O Quilombismo: Of Resisting and Insisting. Of Flight as Fight. Of Other Democratic Egalitarian Political Philosophies.

The opening weekend Acts of Opening Again: A Choreography of Conviviality is a chance to welcome the public to the new HKW. Entering in together from 4pm, all visitors are invited to participate in a performative installation by contributing gestures in the form of poems, songs, gifts, or other symbolic offerings as part of Bernardo Oyarzún’s work El Medán. NOT waiting…, a newly-commissioned performance by nora chipaumire & Germaine Acogny and concerts by Oumou Sangaré, Estrellas del Caribe, and Awilo Longomba follow artistic renewal rituals by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Baba Murah & Ensemble, Forum Brasil and Ilê Obá Sileké, Candomblé House, Berlin, and Rasiel Almanza Cairo (When We Gather); Hand in Hand: a love poem for togetherness by vanessa german; and Invoking Papa Legba by Houngan Jean-Daniel Lafontant with Claude Saturne on the weekend of the re-opening.

Admission is free throughout the weekend.

The inaugural project O Quilombismo: Of Resisting and Insisting. Of Flight as Fight. Of Other Democratic Egalitarian Political Philosophies is a research undertaking, an exhibition, workshops, and a series of performances that invite artists, activists, scholars, and contributors from a range of practices to imagine new forms of cultural and political resistances and insistences through diverse emancipatory projects, past, present and future imaginaries.

The project’s point of departure is the philosophy of quilombismo as developed by Brazilian artist, author, and politician Abdias Nascimento (1914–2011), who defined the quilombos—communities created by escaped and emancipated enslaved people—as societies of “fraternal and free reunion, or encounter; solidarity, living together, and existential communion.” The tradition of quilombist struggle and resistance has existed throughout the Americas, from the earliest decades of the 1500s, when African enslaved populations refused to submit to European colonization and oppression and founded new forms of statehood and organization.

In taking seriously the premise that there is much to be learned from the quilombos and quilombo-like spaces, as lived reality and as metaphor, the project insists that spaces of emancipation and freedom—and freedom itself—must be continuously cultivated, brought into being, and conceived anew.

O Quilombismo contributing artists
Laeïla Adjovi, Amina Agueznay, Ana Beatriz Almeida in collaboration with Cici de Oxalá, Archive Ensemble, Albert Artwell, Barby Asante, Leo Asemota, Maria Auxiliadora, Carol Barreto, Farid Belkahia, Everald Brown, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Ange Dakouo, Bastin Santan Diggekar, Diana Ejaita, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Tanka Fonta, Gwladys Gambie, vanessa german, Assaf Gruber, Bibijan Babushab Gunjavathi, Hattarabi Maulasab Gunjavati, Antonio Jose Guzmán & Iva Jankovic, Hermosa Intervención, Lisa Hilli, Nikau Hindin, Masimba Hwati, Hayv Kahraman, Grada Kilomba, Li Jiun-Yang, Aristote Mago, Ibrahim Mahama, Georgina Maxim, Tuli Mekondjo, Demond Melancon, Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien, Oscar Murillo, Museu de Arte Negra, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Saidambi Imamasab Naik, Abdias Nascimento, Eustáquio Neves, Lizette Nin, Olu Oguibe, Temitayo Ogunbiyi, Owusu-Ankomah, Bernardo Oyarzún, Moisés Patrício, Anand Patwardhan, Zica Pires, Alberto Pitta, Mallica ‘Kapo’ Reynolds, Joshua Serafin, snowfuks, Taller Portobelo, Shakirambi Ganishab Tattongi, Jasmine Thomas-Girvan, Truong Cong Tung, Glicéria Tupinambá, Rubem Valentim, Badimabi Gafarsab Ugrani, Celia Vasquez Yui with Diana Ruiz Vasquez, Charmaine Watkiss, Hajra Waheed, Kaylene Whiskey, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, Bruno Zhu

O Quilombismo: Of Resisting and Insisting. Of Flight as Fight. Of Other Democratic Egalitarian Political Philosophies is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).

In association with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as part of the PARTENARIATS GULBENKIAN programme to support Portuguese and Lusuphone art in European artistic institutions.

Haus der Kulturen der Welt is supported by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media as well as by the Federal Foreign Office.

Contact
presse [​at​] hkw.de