Dekoloniale and Contemporary And (C&) are pleased to announce the artists selected for its annual residency program in Berlin, Germany: Tonderai Koschke, Charlotte Ming, Percy Nii Nortey, Yangkun Shi, Theresa Weber.

The artists were selected by the Dekoloniale Berlin Residency’s high-profile 2024 jury consisting of writer, photographer and curator Akinbode Akinbiyi, interdisciplinary artist Àníké Joyce Sadiq and visual artist Su-Ran Sichling – as presiding Jury members; together with program coordinator at the »Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin« Suy-Lan Hopmann in tandem with literary scholar, curator and lecturer Ibou Diop; sculptor and conceptual artist Raul Walch; Danielle Rosales and Robin Coenen of studio visual intelligence; Contemporary And (C&)’s cultural managers, artistic directors & co-founders Julia Grosse and Yvette Mutumba; as well as Nadja Ofuatey-Alazard and Anna Yeboah for the Dekoloniale team.

In an innovative approach to challenging historical narratives, a group exhibition is set to unfold in Berlin. Bringing together the creative forces of five artists, this collaborative endeavor aims to foster a dialogue-driven exploration of colonial legacies embedded within the historic »Museum Nikolaikirche«/ Nicholas Church and extends beyond the confines of the church, with three additional locations of colonial-racist culpability in Berlin — the African Quarter, the Asian streets of Wedding, and Wilhelmstraße 92. The core principle underpinning this exhibition is not merely to illuminate the coloniality inscribed within the walls of the St. Nicholas Church but to confront and overwrite it, to unearth Black and other resistant presences, perspectives, and resistances, thus facilitating a perceptual shift.

Diverse mediums will serve as conduits for this exploration, including sculpture, installation, architecture, digital art and performance. The fusion of these mediums promises to offer a multifaceted engagement with the complexities of colonial history and its enduring ramifications.

Simultaneously, this artistic venture runs parallel to a historically informed exhibition currently in development through collaboration between the »Dekoloniale Erinnerungskultur in der Stadt« and the »Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin« (Berlin City Museum). Scheduled for display from November 14th 2024 at the Museum Nikolaikirche, Wilhelmstraße 92, and the African Quarter/Wedding, this complementary undertaking seeks to deepen the dialogue surrounding colonial legacies and their contemporary resonance.

The residents

Shi Yangkun (b.1992) is a Shanghai-based photographer and visual artist whose work seeks to depict the absence and visualize the hidden history, revealing the invisible traumas and violence. His work has been exhibited in various art institutions, including the Peabody Essex Museum, Shanghai Center of Photography, Zhejiang Art Museum, and Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art.

Charlotte Ming is a journalist, writer, and visual editor based in Berlin. Her work focuses on underreported and nuanced stories on the themes of culture, history, and identity. She is currently researching and writing about the legacy of German colonialism, particularly in her hometown Qingdao, China. Her work has been published in TIME, National Geographic, the South China Morning Post, die Taz, and Atlas Obscura, among others.

Percy Nii Nortey (1993) is a Ghanaian artist based in Kumasi. His practice explores materiality, identity, labour, and memory, blurring the boundaries between performative objects, painting, sound installation, moving sculptures, and video installation. Nortey holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art (Painting) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). His work has been exhibited in shows including “Poetics of Material Memory”, “Cornfields in Accra,” “Orderly Disorderly,” and “Pidgin Imaginarium” among others. His practice is deeply rooted in his personal history, the environmental and economic conditions of Ghana and aims to decolonize minds and empower black communities, reclaiming agency over their narratives and identities.

Theresa Weber was born in Düsseldorf in 1996 and lives and works in North Rhine Westphalia and London. Through multimedia installations, sculptures, paintings and collaborative performances the artist seeks to challenge existing power hierarchies and fixed categorizations. With a dynamic approach, she refers to ancient mythologies and historical research through collaging cultural materials from an anti-colonial lens. Her perspective as a German born artist with Jamaican, German and Greek background influences her artistic approach. In 2014, Theresa Weber completed her studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where she studied in the classes of Katharina Grosse and Ellen Gallagher, from whom she received the Meisterschüler title. She then moved to London for a two-year postgraduate master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in sculpture, which she successfully completed in summer 2023. Weber was part of New Contemporaries UK in 2022 and won several awards and scholarships in Germany and the Netherlands. Her first institutional solo shows took place at Dortmunder Kunstverein and Moltkerei Werkstatt e.V. Cologne in 2021, followed by several institutional and international shows, as for example at Ludwig Forum Aachen, Philara Collection Düsseldorf, Z33 Belgium, South London Gallery and her first public commission at Somerset House London. This year she had her first gallery solo show at ChertLüdde Berlin, which will be followed by her first museum solo at Kunstmuseum Bochum this summer.

Tonderai Koschke is an architectural researcher and educator. She is a lecturer at Weissensee School of Art and Universität der Künste Berlin, focusing on post-colonial identities and power dynamics in the built environment. Having studied at TU Munich, EPFL Lausanne, and Harvard, she has worked at Architangle publishers, Boltshauser Architekten, and as a curatorial assistant at the Architecture Museum in Munich. She also co-founded Isusu Ffena, a pan-Afrikan collective based in Berlin, that produces events and a community festival.

Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City is a joint project of Berlin Postkolonial e.V., Each One Teach One – EOTO e.V., Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland – ISD-Bund e.V. (Initiative of Black People in Germany) and the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation. The project is sponsored by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

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