BE.BOP previous editions (2012-2013) have engaged European audiences in intricate detail with the outrage generated by Black/African Diaspora peoples when confronting a racist world order structured along the lines of coloniality. BE.BOP 2014 now brings re-existence into the hallowed grounds of healing by means of drawing the spiritual map of Pan-Africanism before and after the so-called “Scramble for Africa”.

The event will include for the first time an exhibition and a simultaneous presentation in Copenhagen in connection to “Say it Loud!”, so far the largest overall presentation of Jeannette Ehlers’ videoworks at Nikolaj Kunsthal (15.03-25.05.2014).
Ehlers’ video “Whip it Good”, which premiered as a performance during BE.BOP 2013, will be projected in the Foyer of Ballhaus Naunynstrasse. The self-explanatory whipping action in Ehlers’ work brings up unsolved issues regarding enslavement in the Caribbean plantation system and the challenges of coloniality. These are concerns that have been discussed thoroughly at BE.BOP since its pioneering introduction of the theoretical perspective modernity/coloniality/decoloniality conceptualized by a group of thinkers and activists from the Americas, the Caribbean and the US Latino Diaspora in the 90?s.

In his keynote entitled “Spirituality, Subjectivity And (Im) Migrant Consciousness: The Tasks Ahead”, Walter Mignolo, one of the founders of this group and advisor of BE.BOP, will address how the combination of these entanglements has created the conditions for reversing migration movements: from the colonies and ex-colonies to Europe and the US.

Another extraordinary public lecture will be given by Dennis Dickerson with the title “African-American Methodists and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement” in the framekwork of the prestigious Du Bois Lectures organized bythe English and American Studies Department, Humboldt University Berlin.

In the compilation of moving image from previous editions with groundbreaking works by Teresa María Díaz Nerio, Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet, Mwangi Hutter, Tracey Moffatt, Pascale Obolo and Caecilia Tripp, among others, the public will be able to appreciate how BE.BOP. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS continues its contribution to the radical imagination of European futures in which inmigrants are becoming fundamental players.

For the first time in Berlin, Héctor Aristizábal, an internationally known theater of the oppressed practitioner, will create a space for collective meditation after his 30 minutes performance “Nightwind”. Also premiering in Berlin, the film work of Sasha Huber, Joy Elias Rilwan and Jane Thorburn will be presented along the photo series “Platos para los Muertos” (Meals for the Dead) by Yoel Díaz Vázquez dedicated to the Orishas. The exhibition will open with “Poison”, a performance by Charo Oquet , who will involve the audience with her characteristic usage of colour and video projections as healing devices, opening the way to an unprecedented meeting which in the liberating tradition of performance art is free and open to the public.

Curated by Alanna Lockward

Jeannette Ehlers + Guest Curator

Walter Mignolo + Advisor

Elena Quintarelli + Curatorial Assistance

BERLIN
May 02-31
Exhibition + Talks + Performances
Ballhaus Naunynstrasse

Tuesday May 6

Du Bois Lecture by Dennis Dickerson, African-American Methodists and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement.
In Cooperation with the English and American Studies Department, Humboldt University Berlin

Monday May 12

4 pm – Exhibition Opening

5 pm – Performance by Charo Oquet, Poison

Tuesday May 13

8 pm – Keynote by Walter Mignolo. Spirituality, Subjectivity And (Im) Migrant Consciousness: The Tasks Ahead

9 pm – Héctor Aristizábal, Nightwind

Wednesday May 14

11 am – 1 pm Artists’ Talks

COPENHAGEN 
May 15-18
Exhibitions + Roundtable + Performances + Screenings
Danish Art Workshops + Nikolaj Kunsthal

Thursday May 15

4-6 pm – Keynote by Walter Mignolo Say it Loud!: Re-Existences, Re-Surgences and Re-Emergences
University of Copenhagen, Amager. In cooperation with Network for Migration and Culture

8 pm – Reception at Jeannette Ehler´s exhibition

Performance by Charo Oquet, Engungu in White

Friday May 16

11am – 5 pm Roundtable – The Danish Art Workshops (Statens Værksteder for Kunst)

Saturday May 17

10 am – 12 pm  – Performances at Nikolaj Kunsthal, Teresa María Díaz Nerio, Ni ‘Mamita’ Ni ‘Mulatita’ + Patricia Kaersenhout, On Guns and Needles

3 pm – 5 pm – Quinsy Gario, A village called Gario + Héctor Aristizábal, Nightwind

Sunday May 18

11 – 1 pm – Screening of John Akomfrah`s The Stuart Hall Project
Cinema Gloria (pending for confirmation)

John Akomfrah (UK+Ghana) + Héctor Aristizábal (USA+Colombia) + Johannes Anyuru (Sweden+Uganda) + Lesley–Ann Brown (Trinidad+Denmark) + Artwell Cain (Netherlands+St. Vincent) + Wagner Carvalho (Germany+Brazil) + Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Netherlands+Dominican Republic) + Yoel Díaz Vázquez (Germany+Cuba) + Dennis Dickerson (USA) + Simmi Dullay (South Africa+Denmark) + Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet (USA+Cuba) + Cecilia Gärding (Sweden+South Africa) + Margaret Gärding (Sweden+South Africa) + Quinsy Gario (Netherlands+Curazao) + Gillion Grantsaan (Denmark+Netherlands+Suriname) + Adler Guerrier (USA + Haiti) + Frederikke Hansen (Denmark) +  Sasha Huber (Finland+Switzerland+Haiti) + Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi (Germany+Nigeria) + Michael Küppers-Adebisi (Germany+Nigeria) + Patricia Kaersenhout (Netherlands+Suriname) + Karen McKinnon (UK+USA) + Mette Moestrup (Denmark) + Tracey Moffatt (Australia) + Dannys Montes de Oca (Cuba) + Mekonnen Mesghena (Germany+Eritrea) + Mwangi Hutter (Germany+Kenya) + Pascale Obolo (France+Cameroon) + Tone O. Nielsen (Denmark) + Temi Odumosu (Denmark) + Charo Oquet (USA +DominicanRepublic) + Tuleka Prah (Germany+Ghana) + Anne Ring Petersen (Denmark) + Ovidiu Tichindeleanu + Caecilia Tripp (France+Germany) + Rolando Vázquez (Netherlands+Mexico)

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