C& Center of Unfinished Business

Conceived by Julia Grosse and Yvette Mutumba, this is a reading room that offers visitors an extraordinary, sometimes disconcerting selection of books that are linked to the topic of colonialism in various ways – from a history book on German colonies to a fashion book on the Sappeurs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo all the way to an analysis of capital markets in the 21st century. A walk-in book case structure that can be used from different perspectives and which was exclusively developed to work in and move to diverse locations.

C& Center of Unfinished Business is part of the Colonial Repercussions/Koloniales Erbe event series of the Akademie der Künste, which examines the structures of colonial power relations continuing to impact on science, art and society today. From January to June 2018, three multi-day symposia will address the blind spots of the colonial legacies during lectures, panels, performances, artistic interventions and workshops.

From the books that are available, about 50 loans were provided by the association Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V. in Berlin-Wedding: the neighborhood library offers around 3 000 books on the history and current life of Black people, written by authors from the African continent and the Diaspora.

The “Center of unfinished business” with its books and the book case structure is a long-term project with the aim of the reading room traveling to other places (museums, institutions, galleries) in the future.

C& is pleased that apart from being funded by the ifa, the “Center of unfinished business” is also supported by the Canadian foundation Musagetes.

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