How can art overcome the colonialist logic that has shaped how Western societies are organized?

Psychoanalysis is teaching us that for a traumatized individual the act of sharing its experience through speaking is as vital as the need for light, water, bread, and silence. It is necessary for this individual to narrate, remember, understand and explain the world that has turned her / him into a victim. Therefore, narrating colonial (hi)stories, and not forgetting and repressing them, is perhaps the most efficient way to overcome colonial trauma. But how could one narrate a traumatic experience when the available vocabulary is the very same that has violated one once before?

The colonial-capitalist-patriarchal epistemological hegemony has silenced the narratives of the “subaltern peoples” and has made it impossible to establish a diverse political and cultural reality, both in the South and in the North of the globe. Art, as a form of language and knowledge, can give these forgotten and silenced narratives an expression, but also allows new ethics and a new way of understanding human relations to emerge. In this context, it is necessary to think about the role that art has been playing in the process of establishing Eurocentric epistemological dominance and creating thereby marginalized identities throughout history, as well as it is important to pay attention on the effort that contemporary artists have done and are doing to change this reality.

Untold (Hi)stories is a group exhibition and a symposium initiated by Filipe Lippe and curated together with M.Bassy that debates on the decolonization of epistemologies, historical narratives, art and society. It will look at how decolonial artistic practices have transgressed fixed disciplines in art, expanded established aesthetic notions and challenged dominant narratives while (re)writing personal and collective (hi)stories. The selected works of the exhibition, as well as the symposium, will problematize issues related to colonial memories, marginalization of identities, epistemic disobedience, territory, historical narration, migration and (de)coloniality. While the exhibition will open on the 9th November at M.Bassy and will bring together works of six international artists such as Fernando Codeço, Sam Durant, Ana Hupe, Harald Kisiedu,Magda Korsinsky and Filipe Lippe, the symposium will take place on the 14th November at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg with the contributions of the curators, artists, activists and academics like Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Julia Naidin, Cristiana Tejo, Harald Kisiedu, Michaela Ott, Monilola Ilupeju and Musa Okwonga.

The exhibition is curated by Filipe Lippe & M.Bassy with support by the Augstein Stiftung and in Cooperation with the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK).

9.11.2019, 19.00 – Opening »Untold (Hi)stories«

Performance with Harald Kisiedu & John Eckhardt
Please reserve: reservation@m-bassy.org

Opening hours 9.11-29.11.2019:

Tuesday-Fri, 11-6 pm
Sunday, 3-6 pm
& by appointment

14.11.2019 – Symposium at the HFBK with Monilola Ilupeju, Harald Kisiedu, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Julia Naidin, Musa Okwonga, Michaela Ott and Cristiana Tejo

m-bassy.org